Brian Teare

Two Homophonic Translations Regarding Gay Marriage

(dedicated to California Proposition 8)

1. Prayer to St. Francis


Now low rod :
marvel me, make me

knock, turn, open
my hat of sky,

let me so love.
Where caution is

ripe air, let us
garden injury; where

there’s redoubt,
let’s outdo fealty,

you and I
unruly. Dear spare bed,

dear whole open
ingathered weather :

furl hope, make
dark necessary

to lie in
whether we’re sad

after or joyful.
O dear viny mass,

grow green ever
over us—knot

some succor
for us to seek.




2. Angelus


Peace, okay!, speak goodness of marriage
and come one eve already. O least ear of It,

come : I’m the lowliest savant of the lordly.
I ask : bring down one tome, accord your word

freely, make my worry becalmed. Fresh incident,
live among us as language : caritas, carry us :

wholly other to each other, may we become worth,
the promised crisis of relation. May our heat be

your great egress; through the mess of our anger
announce to us : “Spilt ink, gnashing, overdone

truths—be through with them and suffering.”
Help deliver us two from circumspection.




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