After Studying Apostolic Succession, I Go Outside and Look at the Stars

At one point,

The Catholics and the Orthodox

Mutually excommunicated

One another—

“You can’t fire me, I quit!”

The Crab Nebula was unworried,

Continued its perpetual dying.

The laying on of hands,

The slipping from one body to another

Of some ancient mystery,

Elusive responsibility

Moving from flesh into flesh

Under the distant, distracted eyes

Whose light is only now arriving.

The conventional image is a fire

In the form of a bird or a tongue

Falling from Heaven and through a man

And from there into another man.

And so on and so on and so.

My dog sniffs at some leaves.

I touch my head and something happens.