You turned toward me,
looking as though
a stairway was about to fall
from beneath you
and you knew
and could do 
nothing.

The stairway
fell from beneath me.

My next to last thought
was of my vanity:  how could I
have mistaken
what you were thinking? 

My last thought:
the pearl lustre of your eyes
so large as you looked at me… 

When I close my eyes
I see the world break apart.  See

a close up of an egg or something
breathing, pulsing rather.

On the exhale, pulsing out. Pieces
push out, a mosaic deconstructing.

On the inhale the whole draws back into itself.
And I become almost whole: I know the fractures exist now.  

When later my daughter says:  
Daddy, how do you believe in science

and God at once when you know
about the breaks?  I can say hush, honey.

The how is the science, the urge and the reason
it happens is the buried name of God being spoken.

I built a little graveyard for the coyotes
who come here.  When I find a dead one

I bury it in the little graveyard
and I close my eyes and pretty soon

I get it back to normal.  I get it back to being alive,
or at least it stops pulsing when I close my eyes.

I don’t think science stops the pulsing, honey,
just as I don’t think faith makes it pulse in the first place. 

You don’t stop using one because the other came along.
You think of your daughter, and so you cover all the bases.