No cave, cleft, or ocean shattering
bluffs.
The only trumpet “Hot Cross Buns”
blatting from my daughter’s open
window.
I circle the block to find my
messengers:
a whimpering beagle roped to a
magnolia,
ear flipped inside out. Cracked
rainbow pinwheels,
plaster Nessie in the dandelions,
all bought
and positioned for some prophecy of
beauty.
If only a forsythia opened by my
bedroom window,
I would spend a week in
resurrection. If only
a birdbath and bench for prayer. Or
a cherubim
on the front steps, concrete wings
spread
over a basket of trailing lobelia.
Who could hide
from that serene, carved smile? But
we always enter
through the garage instead: crushed
milk bottles,
mud-scabbed boots, jump ropes coiled
with shovels and bikes. They were
never meant to lie
in our way. Like it or not, they
speak.