Christ has his second coming 
as my Granddad’s coat
with me, clattering after him like a coin tossed
atop a card table
December sun squinting its unlashed eye and 
President Hoover’s promises 
interrupting the piano’s chattering teeth
false contralto ringing from the radio by the cash register.

Me, cupping the chipped china cheek of my Shirley temple doll,
her pink glass lips 
blunt and glimmering as a bad dream,
her broken arm tied to her chest with cheesecloth.
My Sunday school shoes fib to the Persian rug

Heaven is a place downtown two blocks from the Bay 
porcelain limbs stacked to the ceiling 

Startling somewhere between linen and lace
at shelf after shelf of cephalophores in silk
only half having hats 
to cover their hearts.

No one has ever taught me to pray—
at least, not completely
but I fall down 
idle and mouthing 
holy as glass 
blessing boxes of broken alabaster bodies 
as if they, like me
were daughters 
thread hanging  from
their handmade hearts.