Once I awoke
to dishes in the sink
and took
each soggy-crusted rim,
dropped them on the floor
to see if they would crack. A few
passed the test, while thin shards
of a distant past
gathered like witnesses at my feet.
An old-school revival
preaching revelation’s dragons,
last night’s blue air,
the cover of darkness.
All around, the filaments of bulbs
flicker the glow that draws the host
of winged creatures to dusty secrets.
“Holy holy holy” their wingbeats
on mottled glassproclaim.
Moved by the spirit
of the broom, porcelain shards
respond in “Amen” clinks,
and “Amen” to close
the broken pasts, all these
humans. houses.
brooms. never. enough.room.
Someoneis next door
with a bad past—like all of us—
unscrewing all
the lightbulbs.
Tomorrow, he will announce
his power is out; in the dark,
flicking blue light stations
on that flat screen
pinned to too-thin drywall peeling
slowly. I will sit in the dark,
my headreplaced
by dragons from my closet.