if only I’d had ears
to see the underwhispers
river echo voice amen
instead of eating the scroll of
ashes to ashes, dust to dust —scripture
or rupture— the pages brittle
bones that’ll never walk again
ossified night after night insomniac I didn’t know
in the halfway house on the way to heaven
I didn’t have to be homeless
somewhere between heart & head
I didn’t have to be furious done god-
forsaken no longer
no longer shiftless
or shorn (my God!)
my God, even if cast out—still
held, by love
for love, born aloft
as are the smallest birds
by a wind bigger than any
breath shining in
these lungs, tiny kites
—for if, having fallen, the fallen are
given wings, even once
upon an ache, a sparrow of
a boy can learn to fly