Yerra Sugarman

Sonnet from Alef to Bet (III)

With a mouthful of hallelujahs, I fall on my knees
before the sacred ceremony of your pelvis and skin.

Delirious gorgers—my lips. My tongue is an addict.
Chants its devil-canticle for you, bowl-of-beet-sugar,

manger-of-raw-honey-cool-from-the-hive. I am a basin
of want. Fill me and say my name: in-awe-of-God.

Give my morning its bones—femur and fibula.
Between your teeth, you taste my braided grief.

What’s love, and the throat its blue heat bursts from?
In the psalm of your body: a throb that praises

my thirst the way I praise your arced clavicle.
Not all things can be fixed, but you’re unafraid to repair

the ramshackle dwelling of me. An expert carpenter,
you hum when you seal my always-opening wounds.