New Canticle 

                                “In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.”
                                                  – Denise Levertov

                           Lift red cranberries

                           with your fingertips
                           to your lips and
                           eat them all

                           slowly,

                           like the Eucharist.

                           Peel a new

                           orange now. The juice
                           runs freely 

                           down your fingers

                           into your palms 
                           as you tear apart
                           the cold wet flesh.

                           Those sweet

                           cold sections
                           come to bloom
                           in your hands. You
                         
                           put them in your mouth now.
                           Place them back
                           against your teeth.
                           Follow that

                           feeling with your

                           tongue, the swelling taste
                           from the fruit

                           and wonder.
                          
                           Bend each section
                           against your mouth
                           for the flooding.

                           Here is the stickiness

                           you desire:
                           this holiness,

                           the scent of your hands,

                           the taste of memory
               
                           are new places
                           God has been,

                           and clean water

                           and the curtains
                           and the tears ...