Virtue
after The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Mt. SinaiMy skeleton is steady and my body moves
against the black. When the devils fall, I hear them falling—
At first, the only sounds are my hands
releasing and grasping, my feet hushing against the rungs
my hands have passed over. I think I am going up. The ladders tilt away
from me and where one ends, I take up another. Wings of the devils flap.
Cloak of my skin taut to muscle, muscle
a cloak for bone, bone a cloak for—?
If the ladders do not go up, I am lost. Have I stuffed my soul
into the marrow? I hear the shoosh, shoosh when they fall—
If they fall, have their wings failed them? Maybe they are falling up,
flying, maybe I climb across but never up, maybe I am
a devil who knows only her body, who listens only
to her body moving through space, never pausing, rushing through
this black field of air. Hand on a rung, another. Beneath that sound is
something softer, the sound of calluses forming on my hands and feet. 
Black Ice
Virtue