The first man’s shadow still weaves radiance
in our dwelling –
sleeves of unworn shirts folded into prayers,
socks unpaired, eternally kissed by dew.
He hums a tongue we’ve lost,
its cadence pulsing in our veins,
a canticle that stains us holy.
My jawline carries his errant curve,
a borrowed slant of chin
from one who sang names to the beasts
but left the horizon unfenced.
My eyes flicker in rhythms
he once wove to shroud truths,
their glint – static –
a map of his stumbles.
It arrived like a gate of woven starlight,
swaying, singing with each step I took –
a chorus of creaks that named me.
A cemetery’s panhandler.
It pinned the cost of my faltering tongue,
my rebelling spit and stutter,
to my spine like moths caught in amber.
The harder I reached for virtue,
the louder the gate’s groan.
Carrion’s rotted praise.
Then Christ came, unannounced,
no courtesy in His stride.
He shattered the chain-links,
stepped through live-coals and mist,
and claimed my father’s fractured throne.
His gaze met mine.
His Lifewhisp – a command,
not as judge, not yet, but as gardener,
knowing the yield of my soul’s wild field.
No sermon fell, no scripture lashed.
Only the freight of His silence
peeled the shadows from my bones,
layer by layer, like petals unfolding.
He wore Adam’s form like a shroud –
threadbare at the wrists,
heavy with the sweat of ages –
and shed it for my quivering skin,
unflinching, as if it were always meant to be.
Union sparked in that instant –
not in vows or veils,
but in Him pulling my story
from the flames before it could dissolve.
He stood as the beloved
for a soul that couldn’t stop
gnawing its own edges.
Now I walk as one
who sees another’s fall
in every mirrored glance,
yet carries a second name –
not as mask, but as constellation,
etched by a decree older than stars.
The law still whispers, faint,
like wind threading through primordial pipes.
But the gift unearned pours into the cup regardless,
its sheen spilling over edges,
even when my hands tremble,
too frail to hold its freight.
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