The choir door left open, we slithered in.

Moving through the musky stacks

of bibles and unlaundered cassocks

we lay down behind the altar—

our bodies an awkward tangle on polished wood,

a snake with clothes on,

when he pulled me close, whispering his love.

Still, it wasn’t the airless sanctuary

or the dead I could hear humming

inside the church’s empty pews.

No, it was Adam’s hands that made me cringe

the first time his lips touched mine—

twelve years old and asthma sickly,

the dry, scabbed flesh and little cloth gloves

he wore to cover pink ointments

that oozed in a line down his wrists.

I looked up and saw the cross floating overhead,

draped in black chiffon for today’s Good Friday

like a negligee or widow’s grieving veil,

and suddenly revolted by the cotton-coated touch

of his fingers brushing my cheek,

I rolled away from him, forever. 

What did I know of suffering?  The flesh

pulled taut and stapled, the human canvas

rubbed to transparency?

How my taunts would come to crucify this boy,

my young heart shifting in gusts

so fast from like to loathe—