Katherine Nagel | Chicago | Atheist

Looking out on the street my friend sees
a trio of beauties, he tells me,
the three most beautiful waitresses,
bowing through the rain on a Roman window.

And I think: my world is so much smaller.
And I remember: your arm took my waist
and it was all rain and cobblestones,
our footsteps, rich dinner. And that is all.

Sometimes, when my neighbor looks out
back of our porch, he sees the red sky,
he sees the finger of God. And when he looks in his heart
he sees the warring of Satan and the angel.

In my heart is only rain and wet windows,
and your arm. That is all.
One day they will be gone.
The sky is colored with industrial byproducts.

And even so I find it beautiful:
the chemical sky, our drooping porch,
the trash bins yawning on the concrete below.
I wonder if he'd believe me.

I wonder if there can be a small universe,
a flat wet muddy universe; if it could be
as splendid with angels, as riddled with laws:
my universe, flat and poor, made up of rocks,
pooled water.

E-mail Katherine Nagel at knagel@phy.ucsf.edu.

— graphic by Jeffrey Avila