Sooner or later

PRACTICE

Love, my faith is vague. When others speak

of how they practice it, I think of kung fu

and plywood split by pajamed banshees,

how they always say you learn

such force through practice, pain repeated until

pain isn’t pain. It’s the piccolo

with its reed humming slivers

of sound that won’t ever be music

no matter the fervor of practice,

no matter the pursed poise

of your lips. When I write you, when I peel

away the stamps one no longer

need lick, I’m careful. Careful

for ounces of ink and pulp

and minutes shaved from time

if it exists at all and these words

I strung together beyond needful elaboration

only to say I thought of you

today beside the humming fountain

and had no change to wish

you some better life,

some cloud of shade to be

at your infinite beck, your always and immediate

call. A form of faith I follow

is the sky because it never falls,

despite the testimony of chickens

snuffed by hail, ragdolled by the rain

and through my window

I’m watching the last of summer

as the leaves begin to curl

in invisible fire

and I want to tell you

one thing which has within it no urgency at all

over and over again.