I came to your God; even bowed before His cold, stone altar.
Sat in my September birthday twilight
as the blue stained-glass shone and winked
as if to say, “So, you’ve come back after all…”
the holy books whispering in the pews, “I told you so…”
I took it all in until the unshakable grief shook me
&  I gently rocked side-to-side, face hand-buried,
and there  came such jerked hard sobs.
They echoed on the rebound,
wrapped around the column where, two weeks prior
I had taken your confession, held your own grief to me.
Now that pew was vacant – you were gone,
and all I heard was a broken woman sounding out
some unknowable, untouchable pain –
before I realized it was me.
Me with my blonde hair coming undone;
pale cheeks glistening with tears – a true Madonna,
dressed in my blacks, while outside the sun shone.
When the carillon rang it was only worse –
for on that day, I had taken you to that tower
Let you pull the bell’s clapper and it licked the side,
& tolled high above Manhattan at the off-hour, unexpected –
at our whim because I let you in.
But on this day – my birthday – the bell tolled only the passing of time.
So stupidly I half hoped you might arrive: knowing I would be there.
No matter what you promised in so many private moments –
You never did come..
I lost my faith at 1:06 p.m. on Fifth Avenue.
Turned to the Song of Songs just to see.
No, not because it is your Good Book,
but because it is a real and true love poem,
& such things I found  - I wished I had not looked.
It was all there:
The Rose of Sharon, the figs you last spoke of,
the pomegranates, the scented bed of green, green grass,
her doe eyes, his hair black as raven’s, and this:
“…in the streets and in the broad ways I will seek him
whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.”
I let my tears fall; each splash warping that fine thin paper,
wondered when the last time anybody had really read this.
Surely not you.
No. These pages had long been unturned.
None would see my tear-splash,
and none save a few heard my September afternoon cries.
Yes, a few passed-by, looked and wondered.
A young rector began his approach,
saw the hate in my eye then retreated

So this is my Song of Solomon, my Song of Grief, my Song of Fury.
Tell me, what kind of God creates such love then snaps it in two?
I brought you to Him and He took you away.
For your God is a jealous God – If nothing, you've learned that by now.
And so He wins because you let Him.
He is your God now. Do not pray for me.