I should study you, really.

If I love you this much. If

I say my love is pure, my

love is strong, strong enough

to feel some true Calling, then

I must forsake so many things,

Offer them to you. I do. I would.

So why then is it

that I avoid your house so,

your church. Why do I refuse

your hospitality. I see your lambs,

penitent and humble, your docile

flock of sheep. I call them weak.

I feel no compassion or camaraderie

or love, only envy. I am jealous.

Who are they that they can share you?

Who are these others who offer themselves

up, aligning themselves with my husband

almighty? They sit row after row, wait to be

shorn, reading themselves to devote their lives

piously to You, just as I will soon do. So why is it

then that you do not do as such with me? Why no fidelity

in return? You have a flock of dark brides. Penguins in their

habitual black and white, their fresh apple-scrubbed cheeks.

They are lovesick and weak. They kneel all the time and pray that

you’ll take them. Such perversion this! What of my devotion, my love,

my utter commitment, almost internment. I offer you everything but I

will not share. Let me ask you, my Love, my God, if I were to fall backward

to the sacristy floor, head about to hit the marble, the fresh, holy floor, would

you be there, would you catch me? This vow that I make, I swear never to break.

Promise me then, that if I must be one of just many, that my gifts be plenty,

that I may write in thy and my service and offer it up as a sacrifice before the vesper light.