As the storm moved in, you marked the night
And later the night marked you. A biblical clap woke
      The house to a spray of sheetrock: a powdered sprite
Sprung off the nailheads. Air flavored with ozone.
                                On the ceiling in the hallway, a halo
                                   Grew orange around a fixture, aglow—
                                And Dad on the phone

      Young gray cat puddled under the boxwood,
Only the eyes alert. Appressed to dirt. That hiss
      The hiss of the grasses hissing What should
What should. Blank road shimmers. On days like this,
                                My mind, you hardly
                                   Seem to be.
                                On days like these.

I have not forgotten, neighbor,
our red brick rowhouse, tiny and quiet
with the window always cracked open
even in winter

I still recall the little whitewashed lodging where
we lived in peace, just off a major thoroughfare.

Long ago cloisters had the sacred Truth
of Holy Scripture painted on their walls.
These pictures warmed the hearts of men of faith
and eased the chill inside their stringent cells.

Star of a gnathic nightmare, boasting narrow
snout and jutting lower jaw, scissor
teeth and scaled cheeks

I’ve been grooming you for years.
                           Now I’m asking you to go

through the gate unafraid

At first puzzlement, then joy.

My baby in the making—surely my last—
would, like a ferry heading for a wharf,
know what to do along the way.

Tremor in his hands. He turns obsolete
leaves edged with thunder since the opening scene.
What he sees he reads under croton shade,
out in the sun.

A ribbon around an oak tree reads
brother. The oak’s roots

sinking deeper into the dirt.
A heart