The Cross Maker by Peter Magliocco

I was one who held her flesh with palms
scaling the roses of Sunday
to mold each part of her

into a resurrected whole
of the first woman born again
to feel my life’s immersion

breathe into her neck’s pureness
the fabled image female flux impassioned
so I could see the mother I extolled there,

in seeping light from chiaroscuro beyond
all outstretched slavering need
pooled into the human vortex

before the first crusader came
to torture all cave dwellers
into loving a cross of bones