Parts of Speech
February 1996 

God is not an interference,


      some extra object


      clotting with dark


      among the branches of maples.





Or kicked up with the dust,


      mote in an attic beam


      of spring-cleaning sun,





or conjured up in the gray


      of a man's head.





But in the red 


      of a woman's womb,


God becomes blood


      and muscle and mortar of bone,





      the spoken, written conjunction


which fastens maple and beam,


      mote and mind, maid and man.