Annunciation of the
Self-Enclosed God

            pictured in the wide-angle lens that flattens him
and the house into the single dimension of a monochrome
            snapshot, a sameness in which the turret windows

stonewall over the gray porch, enclosing nothing, echoing
            nothing, though in reality the day is damp, hot, green, full
of orange insects in flight and the smell of mown dandelions

            and the squeal of the wood door that swells
with rain, that sticks in the jamb if one should be home to open
            it to the beloved, this unmoved beloved,

by now a figure of doubt

in a blue suit made brighter by the yellow-house
            enormity around him, the beloved who stands
with his back to us, as if he will remain a stranger

            for ages—and given that he has become trivial, almost
minuscule, in the scene, given that he is less revelation than
    a longing-
            looking shadow among long morning shadows

—it’s true;