Paper House for a Better Thief
Abraham Burickson
It’s a city of sirens that rise
while invisible dogs howl their mistaken longing,
while on the phone your wife moans
you are small
as your pen forms walls and windows, curving to a foreign sensitivity
small as an ant in the walls of the master’s house,
accidently stealing his design with the shape of your ruin,
a design of pure wonder,
of the house of an old, blind Michelangelo
who remembers the angel but has forgotten his own name.
He spent all day wearing himself like a suit,
moving around with a grace that didn’t fit his body, tasteless,
like diamonds presented in a plate of food.
He follows the dogs to your home
and arrives
when what you were and what you cold have been
are standing before a tree, behind your bedroom window
while your wife calls and the sirens spread.
There are bandits living in the mansion, she says
and the masons at the church have begun
speaking in tongues too.
My eyes are tired and I love you,
but I don’t know why.
And she lies at your side
as the stars lull the world into humility
that becomes your rest.
You dream of a women who makes her own clothes
and grows her own food.
Silently your mind builds, under her feet,
a platform of water
which is a question:
how in the shadow of awe, to be human?