She was her own celestial city now.
The ravens and the crows in residence
were fallen angels of the picket fence.

The quicksand builders built
against the Folly of All.
They built from ancient custom.

Walking home from my powerless car
I pass through a dozen supper smells, each
more promising than anything I’ve ever cooked.

Where the bladderwort and water lily
give way to bulrushes and pickerelweed
and cattail heads nod hugely high,

A problem muy adentro, she tells him, deep
inside her—a metal loop like a piece
of Satan, but the doctor who was supposed

The things I saved up there—mantis legs, cat fur,
porcupine quills tied with twine. I thought
this was religion. To climb through leaves

Though reverence may not save us
we must carry ourselves
with reverence.

In the rose and pale gold of
                                                             declining light
I brace my stiff feet on dry leaves, and grasp

Between my back fence and the drainage ditch,
the county’s
                             no-man’s land, I’d

No small feat for Grief to doff
his mourning cloak, the velvet
heft of it, and its scarlet naught