A mathematician calculates his loneliness but comes to the conclusion
that it is too big for even him to handle. Some nights my sister
stands at the kitchen counter, hand over her belly, wedding ring
digging into the soft skin. She looks like a mermaid beached on land
as she rests there, dark hair over her white shoulders.
I remember how the first miscarriage left her reeling,
and she went out one morning to the pier to go fishing
but came home empty-handed. When my father inquired
why she had not caught anything, not a small blue trout or a catfish,
even, she replied that the hook kept slicing through the water
over and over again, as cleanly as a knife through butter,
yet what lurked beneath the surface
remained beneath the surface.
A chemist measures out his sorrow into a beaker
but realizes it can never be reacted with another substance
because it is too complicated.
The other day I put on a little back dress and stalked the town
to see if I could find a man to hold me, but all the clubs
were full of men with sad eyes who wanted to apologize
for things they’d never done.
Tonight my body is a church steeple and everyone wants
to pray there, but no one wants to come in.
A priest walks into a bar
but there is no punchline.
A priest walks into a bar
because he needs to drown
his sorrows in drink.