The Holy Names

I overheard a man who burnt
his fingers, blew a tire, tripped
a wire in the undergrowth and called
upon the worst things he could think to say:

Jesus, Mary, Joseph!

The holy ones spoke
to my heart too, their names
leapt up gently as benediction.

How good, I praised, that you are with us,
Holy Family! How good that you become
the curse of many! How good that they are shorting you
the due reverence, making you the objects of their wretchedness!

Alive inside such petty hate,
peaceable, immense, and patient–gratia.

For if you had not rescued us,
we would curse our own footsteps
and pace our narrow round in shuttered misery.

Dull with pain, we’d slosh and spill
and spit our own names on the wall.

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