(pentru soția mea)

I set down my book, lift my
wife’s pillow to prop my head, finding
under it the Biblia Ortodoxă;

expecting empty—uninterrupted
lines, the bedsheet’s crisp
fold.

Surge of infidelity when something
is discovered. Lying there
silent with all its power, like a
locket or a gun.

What impermanence had
she needed it for?

Of finding: The buoyant before and
heavy after. Like the alcoholic’s
wife who finds the hidden
boot bottle.

I left it there, as one replaces
a stone over a wet animal. Left
it to its agendas, its
privacies.

The unexpected shape of
expecting nothing;
like wing-prints in
fresh snow;

subterfuge—Othello’s pillow;

hidden below that which comforts
us: we confide in them and
nightmare into them; women surrender
and men lay restless upon them.

Our lives foolishly in
control—predicting a flickering
songbird on a branch.

Was it about her past? Was
it letting something go?

Lord, how often shall my brother
sin against me, and I forgive him?

I do not say to you seven times,
but seventy times seven.

I picture her
when I’m not there, eyes
tacking back and forth across
the page like a sail;

pale skin drifting over the
lifting and falling
clavicle—

Adam, God’s first poem—Eve its
revision. There is patience but
little silence;

deep in thought God
walks the courtyard, angels scatter
like pigeons.

I am one ration ladled from the
kettle of souls, kneaded with secular
desperation.

Much is quarried in the
archaeology of supposition. Married,
meaning patented; married,
meaning redacted.