The Pulpit

This speaking map
outlines the axel,
the stirring,
a place from where to speak
while the curious descends the twisted ledge

I am curious; you markedly less

Invisible sermon, when will our ears hear
the uncertain foot of books?

Who dares to stand up-ended?

The body weight in the book
The body weight into the carved arms
My face that you don’t touch

We could do a number of things with this rope

To be buoyed by words
By the words we don’t speak
What does it mean to hold a piece of the same thing with two separate hands?

The page you mark
The page I mark
We read from the same book yet your words are different

The texture sanded down to a smooth, non-threatening surface
There is no reason to leave what lacks threat

I’m sorry for all the questions
My arms just want to hold on to something
and you are always somewhere else

In the future we will learn whether or not we float
We will learn which story will prevail

I feel the difficult mountain,
the rubble of discarded words that we’ve used to evaluate ourselves,
to get closer to the books that grow out from within

Even without encouragement these words accumulate
These thoughts
These dreams
I thought they were meant to be shared

There is only room for one of us up here
That is how it feels