God’s carpenters are busy putting nails
in the idea of heaven. Make no mistake.
It’s hell. If you see my hand shake,
do not worry. It is just the motion
that persists, with or without my knowledge.
I told my mom there was a paradise,
just before she died. Before the end,
words come out. The gallop of these hammers
overhead troubles a dust so ethereal,
I call them clouds or opiates or lies.
If I wake afraid, it is nothing. Only
the creaking of a house, grown small with age.
And so I lay a doll at the door. Think
of it as home, I say. And the doll goes in.