Heaven
       

The faces in the portholes were alphabetized,
all personal funk forgotten,

and the fore- and background crossed
like lovers out for a stroll,

estranged, then reconciled.
No sun, only seamless light, the horizon

a solar rictus. We were designed this way,
said the poised purple clouds,

as a gangway for you to climb. Yesterday
was the sunlight on the morning paper

and all this, pain and lustrous pleasure,
the deaths at great distances,

the rapture of not dying when you should,
the grief when you do,

was a wine spot on fine old linen,
that quiet moment when you left Madison,

the late-winter glare on a shop door
with pedestrians running laughing in from the rain.

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Copyright © 2012 J. T. Barbarese All rights reserved
from Sweet Spot
Curbstone Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission