Confession
It’s not so much the telling of my sins
(The inner battle stations I’ve assigned
To flesh and spirit and the latter’s sad
Retreats) that makes the air go thin-
Then-thick, the box feel so confined.
It’s not so simple as just feeling bad.
It’s more, I think, the intimacy of
The screen (the listening just behind the light)
Where I disorient, go off the chart,
Beyond below, beyond above,
Adrift within the box’s night
To face the stifling smallness of my heart.
Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Agape Review, America Magazine, Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic, Grand Little Things, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.
