No cave, cleft, or ocean shattering bluffs.
The only trumpet “Hot Cross Buns”

blatting from my daughter’s open window.
I circle the block to find my messengers:

a whimpering beagle roped to a magnolia,
ear flipped inside out. Cracked rainbow pinwheels,

plaster Nessie in the dandelions, all bought
and positioned for some prophecy of beauty.

If only a forsythia opened by my bedroom window,
I would spend a week in resurrection. If only

a birdbath and bench for prayer. Or a cherubim
on the front steps, concrete wings spread

over a basket of trailing lobelia. Who could hide
from that serene, carved smile? But we always enter

through the garage instead: crushed milk bottles,
mud-scabbed boots, jump ropes coiled

with shovels and bikes. They were never meant to lie
in our way. Like it or not, they speak.

Tania Runyan