Emergency Exit Only, by Lenny DellaRocca

Listen here:

Androgynous and mute the saint points to the door.
What strikes me is the color.
It changes. And it’s luminous.
The room is coming apart
at the walls though no one
notices. They’re on their
machines working out
so that they look good
when they die. I’m not
good with saints, tell me,
whoever you are,
have we met? Were you
the stone figure
in my aunt’s back yard,
or one of those dark
oils on the parlor wall?
It’s always been hard
to discern between you and Jesus. It’s the eyes, darling,
the same gaze as if
families have come
and gone in them
century after century.
And you both have
the same hands,
the way you seem
to use your fingers,
like a tool that might
dig out the heart
from the body of a child.
Sorry if I don’t go for
the End-of-the-World
ploy. Sure, the room
is burning, but I won’t
kneel, or ask to pass
through. I’ll shout for as long as I’m able to breathe.

____________

Lenny DellaRocca is founding editor and former publisher of South Florida Poetry Journal. He’s the author of four poetry collections, and his work has appeared in One, Slipstream, Nimrod, Seattle Rev., POEM, Laurel Rev., Fairy Tale Rev, The Meadow and Hawaii Pacific Rev. Poems forthcoming in Cimarron Rev and North Dakota Quarterly. He was interviewed by Grace Cavalieri for The Poet and The Poem on NPR and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has invented the Epoem a new form on display at his new poetry journal, Witchery, which is embedded online at South Florida Poetry Journal.