The mystics say to dig, hammer the cloud, day
and night. That the act of gazing at the long obsidian

robe of God undresses unknowing. I have descended
one mile underground down a mine shaft

in the back of a pickup and there was no adjusting
of the eyes, only the coal oblivion of open veins. I

have tracked the dark nebula at the foot of the Crux
600 light-years from earth and I cannot penetrate

your meaning, swathed in opaque interstellar cloud
which sweeps light away with dust of loss,

blackness of grief. I cannot pierce
the absence to find a single ray. I am always imploring

you to tell me, beloved, if you have left me forever?
I scrabble the seam of your silence. You blot the belly

of earth, hollow the cosmos; you ink the endless empty
patches, you sharpen my unseeing eyes so I slip

the stars. You hew vast space for yourself in my narrow
atoms. I dimly carry this sparking quarry which slides

through my sieved soul. I am always asking you to untie
your sack of stars, all while here there are diamonds.

Previously published in America Magazine

Photo by Gary Scott on Unsplash