I once went out for dinner with an atheist, and we didn’t pray
before the meal. Yet before the appetizers came, the breaded mushrooms
dipped in garlic oil, his mouth still tasted like holy wine.
In bed later, after the rich chocolate torte had settled in our stomachs,
we turned the lights off and practiced leaving our mouths
on one anothers’ bodies like crosses, the kind that were so heavy
they were hard to bear properly.
Two years later he was off to Nepal studying glaciers and I was left
with three of his sweaters and a box of handwritten letters,
the paper thin as wafers placed on the tongue during Communion.
He always swore that reincarnation was not possible,
that there were no such things as saints or miracles.
Yet funny how when we were making love,
he always cried out Ohgod, god
as if some strange force had taken hold of his heart
and pulled it out by the roots.