Windhover

Jesus and Batman by Jonathan Sanyer

I wonder if Jesus appears to men who have affairs

I wonder if they realize that it’s his fault and not theirs

I wonder if he came that night
we sat awake on the stairs

I wonder if he could taste
my mother’s tears

and if superheroes fight for kids
the way child services fights for kids

I wonder if Batman could hold families together
with the same strength that my mother did

I wonder if babies have healing powers
when the world is shit

and when they shit themselves
there is always enough love to change them

and give them a chance to do it again.

Insomnia by Jonathan Sanyer

Come gentle mistress

undress with your gentleness and impress your memory
on my mattress

Come daymares
awake in broad midnight
asleep in silence of sunlight

knees meet floor and pray
bare feet meet coal and stay
this sunbaked asphalt, this dreamer’s road

walk with me, let tar settle between our toes
and let God be inhaled through our nose
and let life reek from our clothes

drown in the maybes the yeses and the nos
suffocate with first goodbyes and last hellos
feel the sting from the pitch fork

and the burden of halos
be a sinner like me
be saved and damned and saved again

what’s worse
idle thoughts
or idle hands?

When we lay down to sleep, where blinded within.

Become blinded with me
guided by the insanity
that we could only plan to be

lie to me, lie with me
sleep as I lie awake
sleep as our bodies ache

yours from satisfaction
mine from insatiable lust
sleep and let your sleep be enough, for us

because I am a zombie
I am a vampire
I am, tired.

Come with me
come here when I beckon
be good to me

refuse me

Jon Sanyer