& God said, “love your enemy,” & I obeyed him & loved myself.
Kahlil Gibran
because this mess i made i made
with both hands. because the loneliness
of astronauts was too much
to bear, i guzzled entire
bodies, mouths like wounds
i’d drain & ditch down a storm
pipe. because when you know
you’ll never make it out alive
you get to live out your dreams. because disaster
means from the stars, i cooled each sun
to mirror the swollen red
of a holy tongue. because i dreamt all lovers
must be liars too. because i grieve not the crime
but the cane. because nothing not one thing
is good enough for repenters like me.
because the match you strike feeds
the flame that will outlive it.
because you’ll choke on another platitude
i tell you about the darkness before sunrise.
because no one tells you why or how.
because i’ve seen God shoot the moon
with a pebble plucked from a riverbed
raising song from silt then wrestle daylight
out of dusk. because no one wants to remember how
or where they were when Judas died.
because there are no friends closer
than the ones we’ve lost.
because i can’t keep track of each fallen robin
even yesterday i find impossible
to live. because human beings & their grief
should never be separate, they wouldn’t tear
each other apart both trying to fit. because
Heaven is small but the earth is smaller.
because mercy. mercy.
Anthony Thomas Lombardi is the author of Murmurations (YesYes Books, 2025), a Poetry Project 2021-2022 Emerge-Surface-Be Fellow, and a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, among other accolades. He has taught or continues to teach with Borough of Manhattan Community College, Paris College of Art, Brooklyn Poets, Polyphony Lit’s apprenticeship programming, community programming throughout New York City, and currently serves as a poetry editor for Sundog Lit. His work has appeared or will soon in the Poetry Foundation, Best New Poets, Guernica, Black Warrior Review, Narrative Magazine, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn with his cat, Dilla.
