Rehearsal

Either the wall is dripping eighth notes,
or the sugar ants are trafficking again
in borrowed sweetness. Still hot, still
 
the same in-between hour, but morning
has slipped its reins and is nosing around
inside me. Which means I’m only half
 
breaths away from discovering holiness.
Or pity. That shuttered bedroom I’ve carried
since birth, and inside a luminous body
 
waiting to be stroked. The house natters
on about permanence. The responsible
mail truck lumbers closer, then idles down,
 
making a ritual out of getting my name
wrong. I kneel. If I were my daughter,
I’d hang my hair till it swept the floor.