The Map Chest
And as I bent over the large top
of the map chest to tidy folders, papers,
plastic wallets, the window rose above
me; across the valley, green meadows
fell, a church, half-hidden, shouldered out
onto the skyline, its curt brickwork
pitted with windows like light bulbs
waiting for the filament to burn out.
And when the map chest was tidy and
relocked, and when the church was spilled
as if its flesh were sand, the rain came
over the hill, like water blown over the heel
of my hand, the hand that was no good there,
however, and no good anywhere else.