I was immoral. You used to rod my soft legs.
I’m older now.

My eyes at your door this morning: you locked
me out with the other strays, the don’t-belongs
without homes. Your face shaded and turned
up the stairs.

You once splayed my hand over your stove
so I would choose Heaven, dragged me outside,
bone against bone—

uncurled, broke back two fingers. My palm
blistered as the sun fizzed. You threw bandages
and cursed prayers at me.

Thus, God’s great eye blinks through a glass
that magnifies charred life, as clouds unroll
over quilted sky, masking its bearded keeper.

– Catherine Zickgraf