Between Cities

Sojourners Magazine, Jul 2004 by Robinson, Ananda

Between Cities

Blessed are those who wash their rohes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. Outside are dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters.... -Revelation 22:14-15

A voice whispered in my dream:

Either you love or you're happy,

but never both.

I don't know how to live

without the dogs,

without faces writhing

in the bone-spurred night, bituminous

duels of prophets

and scoundrels, flayed

condoms in gutters,

without the infinite idols

to which we bow

in our desperation, shadow-dancing gods

that every day destroy

the city I cannot

live without.

I want to roll in ashes,

weep under bridges urinous,

sleep in the open guitar case

of the subway soloist, kiss

three-legged dogs and raving sorcerers.

Birds beyond the gates

terrify me: not one

bears a broken wing, not even

one defecates like those I know

nested in syringed

hovels, perched

on wires connecting

the city they divided.

At the gate, between blessings,

I discard my robe:

I have chosen love,

and everything that comes with it.

Ananda Robinson is a doctoral student at Harvard Divinity School. She lives in Somemille, Massachusetts.