My people call themselves evangelical
which means good messenger
the angel who arrives 
with news of grace 
 
The night my mother died
I couldn’t sleep 
I went downstairs
to make chamomile tea
and stare into darkness
When she came to me
I tried to embrace her

My people believe
you can be saved 
if you ask
and what saved me years ago 
from the hell of that house 
was poetry / strange
angel that it was

Grace came 
from the music of words 
and God
if you want to call 
a respite from torment
God was a character in a story 
repeated so many times 
it seemed true
like the story of gravity
or the face of the moon
looking down
with a love I wanted
to take for granted 

My bookshelf was crowded 
with poets who sang me 
to sanity

Sitting in the dark hour 
of my mother’s death
I thought of Odysseus
descending into Hades 
to speak to Tiresias 
the blind seer

Wandering 
through the underworld
our sly but unwise hero 

stumbles across his mother 
who asks why 
he’s come still alive to this place of shadow 
He recounts his failure
to return home / Then he asks
how she died and she tells him
she died of grief 
for him 

My mother died of grief 
as well / Oh Lord
my sister blew her brains out
in a bathroom in Llano, Texas
while her parents sat on the front porch
enjoying the morning light

And my mother carried that darkness,
trying to eat her way
back into the light
until her heart burst

My sister believed 
no one loved her
while I believe
my mother loved me
and my father 
despised me

I learned to live
with a half-filled hole
inside me / And then in the middle 
of the middle of my life 
I flew to Austin 
and drove through the dry hills 
to my mother’s funeral

I thought of Odysseus
trying three times
to embrace his mother,
each time his arms
passing through her

I asked myself why
am I in this place of darkness
still alive and I answered
I’m lost and trying to return home
I’ve been lost a long time

though I was once saved
by poetry / You need 
to understand
my people believe
you can be saved if you ask 

My people believe
no matter what you’ve done
you can fall on your knees
and beg to be saved
but first you must believe