The Diary of Mary Magdalene: Poems from Christ's Wife

Daybreak

Illuminations of lapis lazuli skies and dragon-green eyes,
your hair pennants of glory, fire raging to a standstill.
You offer me the lily of the valley in a gown of suffering,
braced against the world as you sacrifice self for selfhood.
You were the first to cast down the traitors, with flaming
sword and lion's breath shield, a snarl and bloody paw as
the Dragon encircled you, biting at each other's throats in
a symphony of yin and yang. Both sides at fault, both a third
and a third and another third wounded beyond salvation, yet
when Jerusalem fell under Herod's sway you walked the earth
with honest hands of a carpenter and a donkey your steed, the
next time you come will be swords at the mouth and King of
Kings. But with me, you cut roses without thorns and press
them to my lips, I kiss the soft petals like giving flesh
and your wings enfold me into something like Paradise, oh
sweet one, oh wealthy in love, cannot pass through the eye
of a needle with this burgeoning idolatry I feel for you,
mark me Catherine of Siena as I drink your arterial blood
and water and swallow down your heart and know redemption.
I am always eating God. I am always starved of affection,
of you, for even when you enter my womb to lay bare my
fears, for even when you are rushing water down my spine,
I go hither into your palace gardens of prayers, where the
desperate's voices find you, flower bearer, and you carry
them to an empty Throne and pin wishes and regrets like
Japanese wood block prayers on the foundations of Heaven.
Deus Vult, God left a long time ago, and now, you are the
closest thing we have to Him, oh Jah Michael, oh Christos.
I wonder if God died when he became you, if he split apart
at the root and became Samael and Michael, yetzer ha ra
and yetzer ha tov, Qliphoth and Sephiroth, but those shadows
are long arches of spears over my sleep, and I choose the
fiery lake for the unrepentant. I am done martyring myself
for the darkness, sick as well of hell, Heaven is my arbor,
my vine the vintage press of your wrath, know wine well, know
how water becomes Cabernet in your lap, and as I rest my head
in the crook of your arm and gaze up at the stars, the spirit
of nature moves me, and I am a dove alight with the Pentecost,
preaching to Essenes and Nassenes and Gnostics in amber twilight,
we live in the desert like Magdalene of old, drinking down
philosophy and metaphysics, reveling in your truth, oh my God.
This passion play ends one way, you triumphant, I in your lap,
and as I walk down the aisle to the bridegroom of rushing rivers,
honey sweet, sandstone and malachite, I think, so this is what
it is to be holy, hosanna to the drum of Joshua's train, Jericho
fell in my heart, and I leaped into infinity, and the fractals of
what the question God asked, Hayah Havah, is answered by a kiss
alone.