Ladders

When the angels were too old
to climb up and down their ladders,
they would suck in their breath,

unroll their wings, and blow
themselves to the next rung.
Until even that didn't go.

Like turning a key on a toy bird
after the battery is dead.
They got rid of the ladders.

With God it's worse. He forgets
all the ladders are gone.
He forgets that he forgets.

He does what he does best:
calling us for the sacrifice,
his ineluctable test,

as if times hadn't changed, as if
we could count on a ram in the thicket
or stop the knife.

Copyright © 2003 Shirley Kaufman All rights reserved
from Threshold
Copper Canyon Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission