And not even that

because isn’t change what will come to us anyway,

anvil to the torpid heart, the leak of desire

from a clapboard dark to the tributary of a life

that wants what we must give.

Every day the work continues, this being human,

the body a cargo of possibilities insisting on better, kinder,

a self that mends the world.

Enough with the ritual of words, the labor

of each promise already turning to ash on the tongue.

I will walk my faith to the shore,

the cave, the wailing night

to be carried

where love

calls my name.