god was a bottle cap 

my father makes me into
a confessional

doesn't use a kneeler--
sits down-- hands folded on
the wooden table--

bless me daughter for i have sinned

how long has it been since
your last confession?

when was the last time
your confessed anything

maybe five years

i tell him four 

i really want to know
how long it's been since 
i've talked to him
un-edited

there was of course 
an email i sent last
summer where i said i was
gay but i just said
that because i thought
it would be easier than

i'm a boy

i have made so
many confessionals since
i left home

the back seat
of my car in the parking lot
of the giant up the street
where i light street lamps 

& eat blackberries
like rosary beads

the creek with the 
long black beetles spilling
from moss

the bench where i kissed you

the bottom of the library--
a corner desk-- 

are there lips living
inside my skull?

the ones i use only
to speak to god & 
sometimes my father?

how does he know to listen?

sometimes i confess
in irreverent locations--

behind sales wracks at Target 

eating peanut butter
with a soup spoon on
my dorm room floor--

legs criss-crossed--

i become a palm leaf 
to be knotted in from
the pews--

did you know that
they burn palm Sunday 
for ashes?

oh what does my father
burn for ashes?

his striped ties?
his red & yellow checkered 
guitar strap?

i want to ask him 
where he's made confession 
if not in church--

& i think about
when i was eight 
& we'd go to 
the bottling works-- 

jungle gyms
from cases of beer--

bottles clinking--
drunken windchimes--

dad pointed out the labels--
Pilsners, Yuengling, Stout--

& i would climb--
cataloging the printed images
on each case--

elephants with top hats--fat men 
clutching tankards 

birch beer or cream 
or orange soda 
from the fridge--

we'd end kneeling in the blue
jeep as i gnawed on 
a slim jim--

god was a bottle cap

ping onto asphalt

our confessions
were swallowed

today when i drive
home i say confession 
for him--

i tell god
what he already knows--

that my father makes confession
with his body-- 

his back a precarious mountain
of beer bottles

i'm still climbing 

his hands stolen from
the stone mary statue
in the church garden--

course-- heavy

his mouth 
a rear view mirror--