A Dance

The Sistine Jehovah reaches to touch Adam.
And so the boy's body will touch his grave.
A crow made cries, sounded his horn, his warning.

We don't know why the wall did not crumble.
At last the suture heals and the child will live.
Clouds pass overhead and his life is happy.

He can believe he rules the night. Those years
are like a tuber's tendrils questing in the cellar.
It will be years of keeping up before he sees,

before the thing of it dawns one afternoon.
Sculpting the body is for stars. The Milky Way
makes a cincture over the muscled belly.

The soul was like a tiny Aztec dancing
above his head, not sure which way to fly
now that the trunk and limbs had given out.

The finger pointed and grazed the marble shaft.
The stone made a wall between him and his love.
He understood but with a veteran dismay.