On PrEP or on Prayer [“spare us your burial rites”]

spare us your burial rites spare us the first rib the flood, the resurrection spare us your dairy & meats your belief in a life after this one heaven’s a city we’ve been priced out of our mothers fled for more affordable children for the price of liver heaven wants nothing to do with pleasure on earth on this the occasion of my brother’s wedding i need something awful done to my body heaven’s a boy who wants me to crawl through his mother’s midnight-window heaven’s the condom splitting into light heaven’s not a place more a wound i make & pass through when we’re done he asks how many men i’ve fucked this month & not loved spare me the quilt & blankets spare me the look in his eyes when he takes me careful as a poison inside him spare me the lecture on the survival of my body & i will spare you my body