Wayne-Daniel Berard

And No

Yes, I
took down
the photo
of you and
the baby
after you
said  I
need a
break
but the
space
felt
even worse
so I
put you
both back
having
downloaded
a tree of life
from the
internet
 its branches
inseparable
and colored
circles (
chakras I
think) just
about where
your eyes
were
blue
(words truth)
green (the pic
nic grass
heart) indigo
(divine perfection
that sky)
no red or
orange fair
enough my
colors physicality
trust but
the yellow ball
yet empowered
both trees in
this same
frame although
the copy ill-
fit and crumpled
at the top
the crown
the height of
heights
rippling
like a sea
waiting to
part and
lead

Faith

when the marists
moved out
the xaverians
moved in

what had been

a chapel
became
a guest room

single

bed
dresser
closets filled
with inconvenient
indispensable
books
and on the far
wall
a recessed
square
lined in cedar
where the tabernacle

had been

below
on the left
a wooden sconce
for the missing
vigil below
right a lectorum
attached to the wall

                                               
I took out my
photo
(the one I travel with)
from when we

made love

on the balcony
overlooking
the greenest valleys                                            
you

turned toward me
breasts cupped
hair askew
smile you’ve never

lost

I propped this
in the tabernacle space
on the sconce

Vonnegut’s
last book

Yehuda Amichai’s

Great Tranquility
question and answers
where the scripture’d

been

then I called you

“Honey
I’ve found
my

faith”

At Her Mother’s Shiva

if you are looking
for the curved white
shore between
the world to come
and the world of once
may I suggest
hanna's eyes

where liquid time
is constantly receding
and time's liquidity
constantly approaching
(so no they are not moist
with anticipation nor do
they fill with mourning
those are not tears
but spray kicked
  up in child's ballettics
back and forth
between these tides)

see when she looks
up at work at prayer
at you
it is that center spot
- small abundant -

   which going never touches
   and coming doesn't need to

above which suns
may rise or in which
they may set

        at once

Nativity

I met him
at Tatnuck Café
before Weds.
night Study –
he sat alone
nursing his
cup of spicy
West African
peanut soup
and a water

on my way to
refill-it-yourself
I slipped him
a new copy of
Torah, Fox
translation

he stared
straight
ahead

I next saw
him at Weston
seated
against a white
wall as brothers
in mufti filed
in and faced
each other like
parentheses

I sat behind
him, reached
over a shoulder
with kepah and
clips they
hovered there
 a moment
then his touch

the last time I
ran into him
was the caves
of Q'um Ran
got off the bus
passed the
ruins (enough
of those) and
headed straight
up the shaley
path marked
"don't" in each
conceivable language

there he was
crawled back
into orifice,
stem-cell socket
ready aeons
to become
eye? ear? mouth?

he sat
prayer posed
Torah opened
(Ex 3:14)
kepah clipped
to crown
chakra

"Took you
long enough,"
he chutzpahed.

"Me?"
I smiled.