Encoding the window, entering
before I’ve even thought
permission had words.
I just can’t, try as I might,
get over it,
Heaven again. BLUE INSISTENCIES

And now, it’s taken hold
inside all things
my study knows,
chair, table, desk,
each an aperture
once I open my vision.
Even this page, these little words
rungs of ascent,
rickety, improvisational,
bartered or stolen,
still of good use,
sure celestial intention.

All right, I’ll confess.
There are the usual
angels, cherubim, and seraphim.
But they wear the faces
of the cousins I’ve lost
In Ohio, Minnesota,
Michigan. Here’s Walter,
who came up Augusts to Detroit
To make forts with me in the vacant lot,
brain cancer, gone five years.
Judy, shall I try to like her
winged, who told me I was dumb
when I cowered from her chow
after he bit me, drawing blood?
Dick, teenage rope-suicide.
It has been—wow! Twenty years.

Unless I keep ascending,
the ladder vanishes.
I’ll be back in touch,
soon, I promise,
when I’m a little
less transfigured.