There’s always a god

There’s always a god over something / the disappearing wound / the bandage / the sprain / the gold / the silver / the way the rain smells like heaven and hell taking hands to dance / the wilted rose / the opening peony / the downed robin sitting dead by the side of the road poised as though about to fly into a cotton-swab sky / and there’s always a god over something / even the open palm / the sly side-glance / the smoke rings inherited from a lover in college / a mother’s worry / a father’s clean words gleaming like blued steel / the lover whose gone crazy for a man / the man who doesn’t know who he is / or what even love is capable of in diligent hands / the poem / the poem’s knife nick / the poem’s delicate web like fingers through the hair standing on end / there must be a god over everything / or maybe there is only everything / and wonder is a capable steward / and awe is the religion into motion / whether it is to worship the moon as a goddess / or the sun as the face of god / whether it is to worship the space absence makes when an ending proceeds / your name replaced on love’s lips / or the small of your lover’s back / how it could collect rain water you drink from / the presence of arch and hunch and work / to make love physical and not just a chemical / not just some sound the mouth makes for the heart to take for granted / with or without a god / there is still much to worship / the sound of thunder beyond the mountain / the road sign a mile from home / the town you grew up in that learned to slur your name / the slur itself / the way nothing can break your heart without your consent / the whole of everything and you a piece of it / turning turning turning / resolving until you can’t beart the wonder anymore / then, moonless dark