She starved herself
thinking about grace.
How difficult it was
to be nothing
but flesh: prickly, contrarious,
pretending to get by
on cigarettes and headaches.
As a student, she witnessed
the heedless velocity
of factories; of campaigns
preparing to turn people
into things. She called this
force. Like any woman
who has loved a man,
she understood
God’s absence—
the harrowing way
loss can intensify
passion. Denying herself
the comforts of church
or sect, she believed only
in challenge: staring
into the black waves
of oblivion
until they shimmered.
