In a circle and star painted on the floor of your attic we looked through memory albums and you told me stories about the history of seclusion. Then I heard the sea calling and it was like being a kid again, when you can hear your mother bellowing out on the front porch from seven blocks away. I put on my slippers and walked out into the water, going home again beneath the harbor’s warm coverlet to stand council with a whale.

A spider burrowing within the belly of an angel.