Volume IV Archive

Matthew Zapruder

I Will Do These Things To Please You

God gave his only begotten son
and got back thousands of frescos varying
in luminosity and goldenness.  It could
have been almost enough.  Here
we are sitting on a terrace before my lame
sketch of rooftops disputing which route
through them is most impassable.  A
black cloud of swifts flies out
of the actual belfry and I resolve
into a former visual artist
who gives no more advice. 
Periodically at the end of each
of my sentences you cry, and once
again under my tonsure I’m staring
up at the most attenuated rose
window the King of Etruscans
decreed I must clean with this nail
and my rusty intentions,
trying to recall where I left the ladder
I built from extremely rare
cypresses long ago once when I
think I might have been sorry.