good housekeeping

marilynne,

if you are the written word, which word is your own:

"human," "connection," "piety"?

why leave me

to defend your word against the word of a thousand others

who believe that you, despite all your worth,

are frail, insignificant, and kneeling in your own cathedral

i'm not knocking on the door;

i need no shelter.

i'm pounding on stained glass,

discordant in my fervor to ask

to sanction my sanctuary

in a book on a page in the name of

some downtrodden mid-west man.

funny how alive you are(,) then.

you're not what you write,

but will you save my fucking soul?

i've heard you speak into microphones,

hush your voice to seem pensive,

speak to the camera for the camera.

spend fourteen years cleaning your own messes

break spines with your literary concrescence

even still, you've taught me that the human is the condition

but if i am the human corporeal, tell me where when how

do we go wrong am i wrong

to believe that

i don't have the words you do, i don't have the soul you do, i don't have the worth you do--i don't have words.