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When, Lord, The Sky
When, Lord, the sky
hovers so close
to show its cracks
I try to look
behind the vapors,
but find
I am merely here
among the workings
of this day: the dove
beneath the feeder
pecks, while men
harnessed
to wild contraptions
vacuum
the neighbor's lawn;
what little peace
I've come by, lately,
was in traffic
when I saw a hawk
glide by
a mirrored high-rise,
slicing circles
over the heads
of so many of us
going, for a moment,
nowhere.
Repair
We're getting a new roof on this old house
where we've been longer
than we thought we'd be:
our daughter already marking her height to the switch.
The man who lived here haunts us
every time the pantry door scrapes
the sloping floor, the clicking hinge
held by crooked screws.
You curse the splinters in your palm
from the cheap, warping boards
of the basement stairs
you're ripping up just now.
But, you never look better, love,
than when, a hammer in your hand,
the next nail in your mouth,
you're undoing someone's mistake.
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