You Shall Love the Lord Your Teeth

i love, i love, i love
                you say, sanctified incisors scraping
                the gooseflesh of my throat;
                digging until you taste divinity.
                it’s surprising how many bones you break
                finding it; you are the reason my collarbone
                hangs like a crooked clock.
why aren’t you holier?
                you want to know. i almost tell you that
                i’ve tried fitting your version of love
                before. instead, i offer you my lifeless,
                creation-of-adam wrist; you bless it
                and i flinch under born-again fingers:
                is this supposed to be prayer or divination?
why aren’t you better yet?
                you try bleeding sins from my soul
                like a medieval physician, as if sucking
                blood from bone will cure heathenism;
                i want to be able to love someone without
                my raw mouth wrapped around their
                dangling, crooked-clock throat.
you must not be praying
                hard enough, you hiss in my ear.
                maybe this verse will inspire you—
                “You Shall Love The Lord Your god
                With All Your Heart, Soul, Mind, Teeth.”
                i don’t tell you that i’ve never
                prayed better in all my loveless life.
i love, i love, i love,
                you’re singing—it’s a hymn.
                i don’t ask what you love because
                i don’t want to know. you tell me anyway,
                reciting all you remember of the scriptures:
                “you shall love the lord your Teeth
                with all your heart, soul, mind, god”

Elsa Kim