You need me to be holy, but I am not.
And so you've set your silent hands to task,
slowly, lowly, in my bones, to blot
the black, sad shadow in its mask.
Yet isn't it slow, as sprinkling from a flask
as thin as dew (to wash me, I suppose?)
I should think my charcoal heart would ask
for more, a waterfall or firehose.
Your medicine is small as well. You chose
a thumb-prick of bread, a thimble of wine
as symbols of life, echoing here below.
But why withhold the feast for which I pine?

Perhaps because if this were any more
I’d break beneath the impact of the drive,
bones splintered, whiplashed by a story
that I hadn't learned the language for.
It seems as if you want me to survive,
and so it's slow, a weaning into glory.