Our Lady of Desperation
by Kate Horowitz
Our Lady of Desperation
for Maggie Nelson; text in the last stanza adapted from Nelson’s Bluets
There is a god
for women like me and god
is a woman like me and
god,
we’ve been so lonely, years
slumped in the pews
hanging curtains of hair
across wet faces: yes,
this is the church of us,
her hands limp and wringing,
hers clench-white and showing bone, mine
finally unfolded, the damp palms up
the nail-crescents vanishing,
the fingers aching, opening,
please—
Yes, this is the curse of us,
we sea-sized sinks
with the stoppers long gone,
we never fully filling, we always drained,
but: awe. Regard
the hymnal, 99 pages
bound in lapis blue.
Our choir, of course,
is awful, all raw throats
and ragged sobs, but our songs, god,
the songs, our songs:
When I was alive, (alive,
a-live)
I aimed to be
(to be, to be)
a student not of longing
but of light
(light, light,
light, light
A white woman in her thirties leans against a white brick wall. She is looking at the camera and half-smiling.
Kate Horowitz
Kate Horowitz is a poet, essayist, and science writer in Washington, D.C. She writes frequently on love, illness, art, loneliness, and birds. Her work has most recently appeared in Moonchild Magazine, Bright Wall/Dark Room, and Yes, Poetry, where she was featured as Poet of the Month. She tweets @delight_monger and blogs at thingswrittendown.com.