I Asked A Saint To Ruin Your Breakfast//Kale Hensley

To the most holy girls, I bring wishes. Dear Brigid,

         I wish Maggie a kiss

in the cinematic, wish Gabby an anesthesiologist

         whose middle name

is softness, wish Katelyn a million coffee cups of

         bliss, and for me, I

wish to burn this letter. It is difficult to defeather

language and roast it

on a spit. You came from my rib. I fell for just a bone.

         I should have known

better. No man who writes his name and says it is

         poetry could love me.

Poetry is a gesture of unnaming: reciting this is not

         this—this is not this,

this is not—I was the best at it. Of accepting peels

         but not this orange,

of accepting skeleton ripped of flesh, and yet with-

         out the meat, both

still call to mind the burning. Desire you lacking but

         lustrous thing. You

ring down the kitchen sink. I’ve forgotten all about

         Brigid, lady of fire,

lady of smithing, lady of life, lady of poetry—I am

         writing a letter only

to burn it. I will make February rhyme with selfish.

         I will wish for him

radiance: when he eats beside his beloved, I pray

         his plate full of ash.

Kale Hensley is a West Virginian by birth and a poet by faith. You can keep up with them at kalehens.com.