Waiting on the stairs of The Mizpah Missionary Home on
Summit Avenue, the children of apostles played with
neighborhood kids and sometimes spread the gospel, warming

I will strike down wooden houses; I will burn aluminum
clapboard skin; I will strike down garages
where crimson Toyotas sleep side by side; I will explode

Today I wished without mercy
in the bloodless nations of the mind
that a city had gone down with you

The sky is not a glass of anything;
it winks, it’s a parable,
the kind your mother told whenever

Homepage image courtesy of Egres73, Wikimedia Commons

I asked you to have faith in me!
But the four comers of the world smile dumbly.
Envious as the mountain

Everything has its limit, including sorrow
A windowpane stalls a stare; nor does a grill abandon
a leaf. One may rattle the keys, gurgling down a swallow.

See how the white turns pale blue as the night
creeps in, full of mosquitoes and fireflies.

Your image doesn’t dim; it
resonates through all my life.

We played war during the war,
Margaret. Toy soldiers were in demand,

Teeth-marks intact.
She tied a red ribbon
Halfway between