What it all sounds like. These steps and the faded bullnose

brick, the guardrail built for my mother. Upstairs, the sky

is curved in a smooth medieval heaven’s cloud motif.

A small plane glows orange in this hour where the last

drinks are served and the cabin goes somber. It isn’t unpleasant.

Standing here, I am not an unpleasant man. I pray often.

For my young. To anything slow-moving to keep everything slow-

moving, and it is still something to pray, however little action

there is in it. You think and mouth and wait to be acted upon.

And in this waiting, I often stand right here and wonder

about my voice. What it is now. The cloudy painting.

These children. My mother. Me in the third person. Him.

What I can hold—and the way I hold him—in my hands.