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# One Poem by Thomas Dooley
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/one-poem-by-thomas-dooley/
- Published: 2017-10-04T11:00:16.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:40:46.000Z
- Description: Our poetry editor, Wendy Xu, has selected one poem by Thomas Dooley for her monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.
- Author: Wendy Xu
- Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:30(2016, 2017, part 3)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/10/15822662780_86df00ff35_o.jpg)

Jan Davidsz de Heem, “Still Life with a Glass and Oysters” (ca. 1640), oil on wood (image via Irina on Flickr)

## Pentecost

he could have walked  
on water that’s why  
I followed him

up the hill to pick lemons  
for our vodka sodas naked  
by the window a smoked

city in drought haloed  
my body as he came  
to me a tongue

of fire a rummage of wind  
in the upper bedroom where  
I said I will pour out

my spirit upon your flesh  
he smiled and said I think  
you’ve had too much new wine

then we rose up the dust rose up  
to meet a night rain and the room  
became rain falling over

something scorched  
the lifting steam a hymn  
we would step into and become

part of its plainsong rise up  
it sang you don’t have to  
walk through this world

on your knees  
as the words stood up in me  
which is why I’ve come to tell you

where I have been and what I have seen  
so you could look on me  
and not be afraid

\* \* \*

Thomas Dooley is the author of [*Trespass*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00H1UMPAK/?tag=hyperallergic-20&ref=hyperallergic.com) (Harper Perennial, 2014), selected by the National Poetry Series. He is a recipient of a 2017 James Merrill Poetry Fellowship and serves as Poet-in-Residence at New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center.

*Readers are encouraged to submit 3–5 poems as a PDF to Wendy Xu for consideration at* [*poetry@hyperallergic.com.*](mailto:poetry@hyperallergic.com)