If we were to walk for a hundred years, we could never take
One step toward heaven—
you have to wait to be gathered.
Two cardinals, two blood clots,
Cast loose in the cold, invisible arteries of the air.
If they ever stop, the sky will stop.
Affliction’s a gift, Simone Weil thought—
The world becomes more abundant in severest light.
April, old courtesan, high-styler of months, dampen our mouths.
The dense moist and cold and dark come together here.
The soul is air, and it maintains us.
—Charles Wright
