Psalm after psalm into a dead sea of silence: they invite
their own enormous, endangered day. Scalded, lord,
by sunlight and the lizards watching, licking dust,
he unfolds the fresh sheets: brisk sniff of laundry, white
as a field of Queen Anne's lace. The word "linen"
comes to rest, a cleansing breath, and a big sail bellies
in the breeze he conjures, speaking its memory of flax and water,
acres of raw linen in the Low Countries or the black North
laid out like a waiting canvas, a picture-glimpse of heaven
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