Heaven

Heaven   

           is just a garden, really. 

A plot of land where you might reach down 

to touch the snow 

and crystallize. 

           I don't know this for a fact. 

           Fact is 
 

joy is as close as I've come 

to a second act. 

           Maybe further. 

During a craniotomy, metal screws were used 

to refasten the wedge 

of skull 

that had been removed 

           to expose my brain. 

           The material 
 

almost human. 

Materially shaped with flame and driven into 
 

the mind. 

           Cybernetic,

           I can still pass 

through a metal detector without setting off 

an alarm. 

           The fire unharmed. 

           Look through 

           my head 

and see the great waffle iron of the garden 

glowing. 

From the window seat you'll notice

           angels skiing. 

           Don't take it from me. 
 

           There's a god, right? 

I got that straight from the horse's mouth 

           when those 
           who inherited 
 

the earth 

decided they'd inherited idiom. 

A neurosurgeon will tell you that using metal 
 

               to patch 
           a skull 

is equivalent to picking up branches 

and placing them 
 

               back on a tree. 

Decorating purgatory. 

               In the air 

               cirrus, 
 

stratus, and alto imitate aspects of the healed— 
 

               nonstop shadows 

               on an MRI. 

Launch me into the atmosphere and eventually

I'll want to return 
 

               to the field 

               where I was born 
 

               despite the fact that it's burning. 

There's joy, even in hell. 

               Artificial time, 

               painted reeds, 

the garden soaring, soulless, shaken like a snow 

globe. 

When I fly, I fly

through a metal detector 
 

before joining the seraphim. 


               No alarm, 
               no end. 

Now I have a little more time with the flowers

that interrupt 

               the runway's 
               lift. 

Thank you for this gift.