My sister says what hovers over her--
wings in stone, the movement
stilled but flowing as in a rosecolored
marble. If the flesh could be so
removed from the merely cellular.
Metaxu as Plato describes
it the voyage and back, like the
game of fingers linked, broken,
the games of children on playgrounds,
Red Rover, the line calling as if
to the dogs. And love which moves
through, feels expansive even
though the frame is small. My
son this morning tells me he will
not believe it--that we live on
a ball that circles through space,
that so much surrounds us, and we
are so alone we can’t see it,
letting out a breath as we pull
on to our house on our deadend
street, the big mulberry in the
yard now yellowed, dead--
a few days--at most a week--
the platelike
leaves will curl and fall.
When the car hums into the driveway,
we both close our eyes, try
to feel the earth move, feel nothing.
The blind looking in. I never
understood why Psyche is prohibited
from seeing him--because she would
be afraid, because the large is too
large? My sister says, What
cannot be reached, her arms above
her head, hands opening like
heads of sunflowers.