if only I’d had ears
to see the underwhispers

river echo voice amen
instead of eating the scroll of

ashes to ashes, dust to dust   —scripture
or rupture—   the pages brittle

bones that’ll never walk again
ossified night after night insomniac I didn’t know

in the halfway house on the way to heaven
I didn’t have to be homeless

somewhere between heart & head
I didn’t have to be furious done god-

forsaken no longer
no longer shiftless

or shorn  (my God!)
my God, even if cast out—still

held, by love
for love, born aloft

as are the smallest birds
by a wind bigger than any

breath shining in
these lungs, tiny kites

—for if, having fallen, the fallen are
given wings, even once

upon an ache, a sparrow of
a boy can learn to fly