Hard-Pressed
She watches herself from a distance
as if from a drone, finger poised
for slaughter. She recognizes the shape
of failure, the slump of spine, her hands
hanging dead at the wrists, trying
once, twice, thrice in the fifty-minute hour
to stir up some vestige of Spirit. Even John
the Baptizer would have been hard-pressed
at having to repeat himself: The Holy One,
the Son of God cometh! What?!?
The Holy One, the Son of...! What?!?
To Hell with it! he would have said, shaking
the dust from his sandals. She watches
the slow sweep of the minute hand
and imagines the crash of overturned desks
tracked by blank eyes. Later, she'll self-soothe,
dimpling her cheek into the shape of a wineglass,
her gloom lifting after twice draining the same.
Refusing to crash and burn, she will repeat
the daily liturgy, old-school and obdurate.
