Confession Therapy
One summer, as I was cleaning out the grooves in my palm, I was living in a monastery. One Saturday, the brothers and I hopped into two minivans to go to confession at the nearest parish. I went in, forgot some sins, withheld some, made some up to make up for it, then stumbled over the Act of Contrition. Later that night I told the brothers I had forgotten some sins; hammed it up, went back the next day, confessed the ones I forgot, withheld some more I remembered, and then nailed the Act of Contrition. Jesus was standing a little too close to that sheep, and we all shared a giggle about it, walking by his portrait, in the family vans, in the cloisters with Đức Mẹ, after the Fifth Mystery.
for Thầy Nhân and Thầy Phillip
* Đức Mẹ – Mother Mary
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)
for Catherine H
It seemed like your dream within a dream made you feel like
you were being watched.
Was it the meat sitting on the
opposite couch, with its forgiveness eye—backlit, and the vitreous
opaque and tonic-like—
who, considering thoughtfully whether
to wake you, touched its one clear mole, making it impossible for
us to settle on one story
or on any anecdote at all
that could help explain the scabbing over the cupboard,
which
up to that point had healed whatever our joy had diminished.
If it’s helpful,
next time I can dropkick this pen into your dream,
and you’ll wake up with it on your couch. And when you wake
up, you’ll wake up holding it in bed.
