Matt Hohner: Confirmation

Confirmation

for Klaude

Penance

What is the sound

of regret through the wind

at sixteen feet per second?

Absolution

Your feet, empty

as beams of light.

Your smile a dead

giveaway.

Resurrection

The stone moved aside.

An empty tomb.

She found your burial clothes

laid out neatly on your bed.

Age of Discretion

You must have wanted

as I stood with you

before Christ.

You must have known.

Lead us not.

Lead us not into.

Lead us.

Sanctum

In a car. On a lot. In the daylight. You paid the boy.

You hated yourself. Your prayers were flagellants.

Persecution

You were drunk in the car when they pulled you over.

They brought you before the judge. You were guilty. You fled.

They crucified you in the news. I denied your name to myself.

You were drunk in the car when they pulled you over again.

Facing hard time, you knew it was time to go.

If only Judas were there to kiss you goodbye.

Contrition

Heart burst like water.

Ribs caved in like jars of clay.

Teeth exploded in shards.

Brains become jelly.

Bones become dust.

Accipe signaculum doni Spiritus Sancti[1]

A note left behind on the seat of a car on a bridge over the river.

Ascension

Now, the quiet trees. Now, the darkness.

Now the odor of iron and wet stone

rising in the cool June air.

---

[1] Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.


Matt Hohner holds an M.F.A. in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.  His work has appeared in The Mom Egg Review, The Baltimore Review, Dancing Shadow Review, September Eleven: Maryland Voices, Poets Against the War (online), The Potomac (online), Lily (online), and other publications. Hohner lives in Baltimore, Maryland.