From the Book of Esther I filtered the sediment of vulgar joy,
and from the Book of Jeremiah the howl of pain in the guts.
And from the Song of Songs the endless
search for love, and from Genesis the dreams and Cain, and from Ecclesiastes the despair,
and from the Book of Job: Job.

And with what was left, I pasted myself a new Bible.
Now I live censored and pasted and limited and in peace.
A woman asked me last night on the dark street how another woman was
who’d already died.
Before her time—and not in anyone else’s time either.
Out of a great weariness I answered,
“She’s fine, she’s fine.”