When Valentine's Day Falls On Ash Wednesday

When Valentine's Day Falls On Ash Wednesday

We cannot have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing... —Thomas Aquinas

For Jill Andree

I think of the ashes I got as a kid
          on my devout forehead after school.

          How Saint Valentine was beheaded for his beliefs.
How Aquinas said he who acts against his conscience sins.

How currently I can't accept Grace.

How my anger lurking
in my deep murky bloodlines eludes me.

I want to not snap and lose my shit
on anyone anymore—especially you.

I think of arrows slicing through tied-up Saint Sebastian
when his faith was no longer hidden.

I think of Flannery O'Connor—
                    How Tom Shiftlet tired to outrun that cloud
                            in the rearview of that car he stole.

Remember when we rode down to Savannah?
The oil pressure light was on the whole time—
I joked it looked like a genie lamp.

We walked past the house Flannery was born in,
who wrote to discover what she knew.

        And I had no idea what any of this meant until now.