James McMichael

I’m four
at the hospital I was born in.
From behind the nurse’s
white gown and mask:

I want you to count backward from

ten for me now
out loud.

*

In dogma
is the secret that renders God unconditioned,

on one condition.
“If you are not My people,
I am not your God.”
As fashioned by His people's witness,

a made thing,
God,

For the young man who would have
myrrh from a woman,
and cinnamon and aloes,

smoother than oil is her mouth. She flatters him with it.
Between her lips lies death.
The young man learns that as his bride he should instead have taken
Wisdom to him.
Wisdom is the words that figure her as

The Artichoke

She bore only the heart,
Worked at the stem with her
Fingers, pulling it to her,
And into her, like a cord.

She would sustain him,
Would cover his heart.
The hairy needles

I know I’ll lose her.
One of us will decide. Linda will say she can’t
do this anymore or I’ll say I can’t. Confused
only about how long to stay, we’ll meet and close it up.
She won’t let me hold her. I won’t care that my
eyes still work, that I can lift myself past staring.
Nothing from her will reach me after that.
I’ll drive back to them, their low white T-shaped house

The mountain north of Pasadena has severe
and angular back canyons where the light is always
unexpected, out of place, too simple for the
clutter of the granite blocks along the creeks.
The slopes have low rough shrubs, some firebreaks.
It rains sometimes, and then the soils wash easily
through Rubio and Eaton canyons to the small
catch-basins and the storage tanks. The bedrocks

The farmhouses north of Driggs,
silos for miles along the road saying
BUTLER or SIOUX. The light saying
rain coming on, the wind not up yet,
animals waiting as the front hits
everything on the high fiats, hailstones
bouncing like rabbits under the sage.
Nothing running off. Creeks clear.

Amant in bed,
dreaming.
There are no
borders to this
miniature.

B moves Bateau across the night.
It is all the loops can do
to let their gilding