Exotic Garden (1954), Kurt Seligmann

Holy is Another Kind of Lonely

Make of pain what you will, the kid in me

will say it’s all for show. A church with a body 

hung in its rafters, a church of stained glass: 

is this suffering beautiful, now that the light 

has shone through it? I’ve yet to meet an adult

who knew what to do with all this dying, 

how to ration out grace. God’s gift is meaning-

less without you. August makes me desperate 

for the garden hose, because in each dream 

you are watering the lilacs and I have no body 

to reach you. No mouth to drink. I can’t bear 

knowing it will always be like this: the garden 

a garden of lilacs drowning in water. Your face 

like film ruined by light.

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BRENDAN BENSE is a poet and UC Irvine MFA graduate, where he served as the poetry editor for FAULTLINE journal. His work can be found in Columbia Journal, The Crab Orchard Review, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. He teaches writing at West Chester University.

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