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 Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, Ekstasis Magazine, Amethyst Review, The Society of Classical Poets, The Chained Muse, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He was the 2nd Place winner in the Catholic Literary Arts 2022 Assumption of Mary poetry contest and 1st Place winner in its Advent: Mary Mother of Hope contest later that year. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room.