thinking of the Book of Revelation while you stop for someone overdosing - Kendra Ralston

i am learning what it means to feel holy 
among these brittle-spread ashes             beside your kindness 
with you i see what is whole                 you the calling     
and perhaps John was hallucinating       writing Revelation 
thumb-wrestling the right hand of a sermon 
the church robed in limestone and wood             and the hollow smell of prayer 
the tithing bowls in passing               how they sutured my weeks together  
where i drowned in his love            and overwrought lighting 
with you i am back        in that blond woodenness 
asking for help or hope                    from whom is still a question 
because only you bent forward         with palm outstretched 
that wednesday pietà  
we turned and found him           splayed on concrete  
a lackluster ceremony          here on the sidewalk as people bristled past 
before the leaves glittered and burned          into yellows and reds      
and we had only left the front steps       that pink-tinged morning   
​ 

Kendra Ralston holds an MFA in creative writing from Fairfield University. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Gyroscope Review, Metphrastics, Jelly Squid Magazine, Anthropocene, Cathexis Northwest Press, and Cider Press Review.