Melissa Crowe
In some ways so glorious is the world I forget
how terrible it is—leaning over a ditch of purple
weeds and runoff, alive with pulsing frogs
the size of fingertips, the flutter of their tiny
throats, the pinpricks of their black and shiny
eyes, their skin a green that's somehow tenderer
than pink, I think, This is enough to have come here for.
Today I sat in a bath so hot I said fuck
as I sunk and, sweating and stinging, drank
a glass of ice water, chewed every cube,
though if I crack my teeth I can't afford
to have them fixed. Bliss, bliss and forgetting,
and between sips I read a book about 9/11,
learned that when the first tower collapsed,
a man running from the wave of debris begged
a fire department chaplain for forgiveness,
and the chaplain said he'd offered general
absolution the moment the building started
to fall—general absolution, everyone granted
mercy in an instant—the cops, the accountants,
the jumpers, the hijackers, straight to heaven,
made clean. Will you know what I mean if I say
we should have designated all the water
holy? I'm trying to forgive you. And if you're
wondering who you are, you're everyone.