JEANNINE SAVARD
Sky Treasure
Her first real prayer comes back as a pig
With an extra hind leg and tail curling in a cloudbank
Over the stone wall she kneels beside.
A trowel and long matchstick can of seeds are propped
Like aporias against the growing Pistache tree.
She has heard its voice in the shade—familiar,
As if rubbed-over with sage, her grandmother
Calling the Lamb to come
Show himself to them, face to face.
She watches a mockingbird punch his beak
Inside a fig from the tree her husband planted
For himself. She's laughing to think of his anger
At the innocent harvesting on an ordinary day
In summer, and of his desire for this same
Sweet particular he'd say can't compare.
For his sake, she remembers an old remedy
For garden pillagers: pie tins strung out in intervals
Across the lawn. As daylight tunnels through itself
As visibly as a tongue curling at the communion rail
On a Sunday held for safekeeping, she hears
The song of so many hungers,
As hers, as his. She is waiting for the difference
But can't find the boundary line between. 
return to top
|
