I Baptize Myself with Deaf Water
My soul knows golden tequila,
and bear-shaped honey jar on the breakfast table.
One with the worm, the other echoing the hive.
Each dares to restore my damaged soul.
Intoxicant or honeyed treat, each flows
to refresh the throat, parched or scratchy.
To help me revise testimony given
under moon-shadow – straight-faced
to quench thirst or hunger. I search
antidotes swirling in a new elixir –
one bordering on the Divine, poured for me by
an off-the-clock angel who knows my plight.
My fight to flush dark habits, rather than
drown gulping salvation's tease. Poured
from an ordained vessel, the fluid reshapes me,
like a rainstorm flattens along the curb.
Eager to witness, I baptize myself –
palms as twin ladles to the brow.
I commune with it. Walk into the river
through sour moss gathered on muddy stones.
About the Author: Sam Barbee has a new poetry collection, Apertures of Voluptuous Force (2022, Redhawk Publishing). He has three previous collections, including That Rain We Needed (2016, Press 53), a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016. Also, Uncommon Book of Prayer (2021, Main Street Rag) which chronicles family travels in England.
His poems have appeared recently in Poetry South, Salvation South, and upcoming in Cave Wall and, among others; plus on-line journals Dead Mule School of Literature, Streetlight Magazine, American Diversity Report, Grand Little Things, and Medusa’s Kitchen; and is a two-time Pushcart nominee.
Image Credit: Théodule Ribot “The Full Bottle” Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
As It Ought To Be 