.

and here the garden is ordinary. The grass
still brown from winter and the birds’
singing inadequate. There is a tree down
near the wood-line. Only in the broken
part of the trunk can genesis be seen,
the heart exposed like a strange flash
of light on a dark evening.
When I told her about the storm,
the fallen tree, she didn’t understand
my lack of grief. It is the way things go,
I explained, but she insisted death
is not the end, stroking the small angel
pinned to her blouse, its bright sterling
worn thin on the wings.
Later, I imagine my tree as a lost seraph,
the wood first expanding with water
and then disintegrating: the long slivers
of wood dropping free one by one
until one night, the luminous outline
of its wings explode into the darkness.

.