In the Search of an Anchor for Her Eyes
(The Second Strike, a New Kind of Lightning)
there was once a perfect
time and place and good intention folded so tightly onto each other
they became a single thought in the mind
of the present and generous god of fallible millions
a wide-eyed child in love once was born
on other side of perfect and lived too many years
looking back and counting her steps forward
a night passed in the shadowy wake of perfect
came again to shake the trees around her
stir the sounds in the dark that had gone to sleep
suspicious hands reaching out across the quietest rooms
of strange houses behind doors
and signs of what cannot be.
waking up in sheets that rustle and twist
on the restless side of imperfection
the other side of heavy cheeks and lips that slip
much too close to mistakes that do not dissolve
in the wet of early winter rain
do not blow away in tornadoes
as she watches from her car
trapped again
and the whole imperfect world is telling her that everything is okay
that she is good and good’s to come
but she may not hear over the vibrato of the sky
falling down around her.
