Sanctuary

Amid work I reach
for texts in secret
With a longing
I would feel for a shaded grove
As I lean into
The plow

As if in indolence
I could flip an hourglass
To tilt the coolness
Of tilled earth
And receive the air
Weighted with leaves

As a draft of words decanted
From a sluice between
Where the sun cannot fall
And my toil cannot reach

Should I return with gifts
Let their weight be subtle
On my shoulders
An undisturbed pool
Behind my eyes
A susurration wreathed
Around my speech

Let them be more bearable signs
Of the voice that fell upon me
In that idleness
To speak more fully
Beneath the boughs

Of words that settled
with the dampness of evening
Or perched in flocks, surveilling
The alleys beneath their lines
Or fled at the edge of tall grass
Sloping to the freeway where
My brother lay

Of the unformed
Ends of conversations
Where I’d wished to rend
As open and oracular
As my father under
The face of grief but could
Only stand in its gloaming
Its fluorescence and hymns

Unable to join those
Less afraid of the work
Who knew their sight
Would sunder here
And behind closed eyelids
Sunder again
To reach for texts
That bloomed beyond longing

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