The Ways Love Calls Out

The pulse rides smoothly
under these shoulders today--

this enamel and a cursory edge
to the body is just a drum
that I have learned

to conquer before dawn
when the mind is crisp
and slightly awake

like the broken sky
at civil twilight.

The heart leaps up near these shores
and the ocean cannot contain
the brightness here.

The heart cannot contain
the ways Love calls out
in rose and clementine at the seam
between night and the bursting

open,

the smile of God rushes forward,
embraces a flower that splits
this inexact beauty
into a thousand petals
of prayer.