In this place
where there are no rules,
what could I say to my friend
whose husband died?

That I did not recognize the maelstrom
in the front window
of the washing machine,
thought the whir of advancing archangels
was the vacuum cleaner’s roar,
confused the four horsemen’s hoofbeats
with the steady thumping of my heart?

Since I was so slow at learning my part,
whirlwind and the burning bush ripped off my roof,
threw me without food or water
into a televised dress rehearsal for the apocalypse,
where I could do

what I should not--

tie angels with barbed wire to cement blocks,
toss them into foetid, flaming swamp,
push wheelchairs of the abandoned dead
to Charon’s raft,
on their foreheads tattoo names with indelible marker,
stop their eyes with slugs,
shove subway tokens into their mouths--

or what I should—

dive with wire clippers into the flood,
perform CPR until angel breath and mine are one,
turn pirate, storm the barge,
scream, push, pull the dead onto the shore,
Heimlich the coins from deep in their throats,
not care I am screaming into deaf ears
even Orpheus could not awake
when only for love I call them by their names.