like a slap, like a bone, like a spice,
like a thought gone still in the light,
another kind of sorrow, a kind of life,
a cheek stroked, then freckled.
Its rhythm amounts to injury, to a small space.
No singing. Just a sack of air, a soiled shirt,
more sermonizing that picks away at the grass.
There is no seedbed of ecstasy,
just mildew in the sheets, and prayer
like a crack at the birds
who without pause, shape themselves
out of flight, out of song.