(nourished for a time,
and times and half a time)

You use to not be real
so I thought you an angel—
a lumbering archangel warmonger
scoring through life with the lean slash
of a sword.
When you put your laundry out—
it is a banner brandished.
When you open your mouth—

it is a bugle sounding out the beginning of day.

But now I see all this untainted loyalty
in the marks you make
and how your treaty
is a shield-embrace of all things unheavenly,
your hand rubbing
down my back, caving me, settling
me into this earth.