And aren’t we touched?
Knowing as we must
the divide between us.
The unbearable
distance we close upon,
but cannot close.

And weren’t we
giddied by it once,
though, too late, appalled.
Like children grown to parent grief,
after some necessary mischief
has sent us to our room
the lonely hours to pass.
Gave thought its awful math
in halving:

of half, and half again of that,
from here to there,
to any wall the house provides
on the way to the unreachable.

That nearer, then nearer,
that never gets us there,
so learn to live, our lives,
without.

By thinking
back to what we might have had,
entire, instead of what we got
by halves, having all
our lives together lived apart.

The hungry are never satisfied.
Hunger must be fed.

The angel, body-less, matter of fact,
daubs the door with an innocent’s brush:
the first born dies with the last.

Someone says, let the dead bury the dead.
I do not say this
world or any other is conceived,
any more than those worlds,
alive, are
froth on the lips of the mad.

The mourning dove trapped in my house
beats itself senseless on the glass.
So clear is that escape,
a litter of feathers
limns the floor.

Open the windows!
Open the doors!
Still it will beat its head
against the closed.

Next time the god comes streaming
out of the four corners of the world
to take you by the hand,
greet him. At the crossroads,
pity. Take pity.

Already he knows.
You have killed him.