Isaac

My brother was a carpenter,
with wood-stained hands—
more cedar than cherry.
What's a hard wood?
I'm not the carpenter.
I can only use a saw
with help.
He had wooden talent.
His rawness was built
into the heartstrings in his palms.

The psalms face his black shoulders,
and I ask his forgiveness
for boxing him in hard plastic.
I'm not the carpenter.


Inspired/prompted by "Isaac's Remains"

Sapless

She cradles her hands
     against her ribs
with the trying tenderness of a child with a fallen robin's egg.
Her shoes have worn themselves to
               a smell like leather drying
                                                 over
                                                        and over
             in the ceaseless sun of a never
                              gained distance.
Drying her toes,
the curve of her ankle,
the sediment of her calf,
      and huddling
    into the crook of her knee.
She walks on air;
                                                     stings herself
without feeling the rivers of mud
drying her hip,
                  her waist,
           and two false ribs.
         
               The egg falls.
Her lips meet across the scorpion weed.


Inspiration