Uncle Warren prayed for my pagan, pantheistic soul
to rise in the afterlife to some celestial kingdom
I never cared to imagine. When he died I saw
his hands cutting, carving, smoothing wood
into the tables, mantels, chairs and doors he gave
to everyone he liked. I didn’t want to remember
how those hands trembled the night he claimed Al Qaeda
was as powerful and dangerous as the Nazis,
parroting the president’s recent line,
and how our dinner turned to bitterness,
Eloise finally silencing us for peace,
how we rarely spoke thereafter, divided to his end
by stupid fear and rage, the war in our blood.

Wet sand sighs with my steps. The iron breathes
through my shirt. An intermittent ticking.
Eternity is too much for the mind,
except in small doses. Who can hold his own
death in his hands, carry it through the day?

Versions of Jesus and Mohammed reach
for each other’s throats.

In the grain of oak and pine: many kingdoms.