Inside the sacrarium of a dictionary
inside the black and white alphabet of the book
words put on their pontificals.

Clerics of the sacred college of language
dressed in vestments. Robes and trappings.
Transfixed at the moment of ritual.

Read blood—the blue fluid sanguine
drips from each thornprick and piercing.
Juice of the grape, sap of the plant.

Cold blooded, warm blooded, all of creation
carrying its own flow and stream, its coursing
current. The flood and drift revisited.

Read dove—and a bird flies from the page
a rain of letters and feathers, falling.
Low toned murmurs of the mourning dove.

Its breastbone a house of worship
a church of desire. And the Holy Spirit, she moves
across the land, in the beginning, in the din of it.