Otherworld, Underworld, Prayer Porch. David Bottoms

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      Studying the Small Hill

      Sometimes when my wife and daughter are asleep

      I stumble outside

      with our dog at three or four in the morning to piss in the yard.

      In winter the moon scorches the tree branches,

      and in summer it frosts the hillside

      with a shabby glaze.

      Then the bird feeders standing in the smudged shadows

      of the maples

      look like human skulls impaled on poles —

      and sometimes wind and crickets and tree frogs

      make lurid voices in the trees.

      This is when I empty myself of anger and resentment,

      and listen to them puddle

      in the grass at my feet.

      Jack runs the fence line and trots out

      of the shadows, panting, to piss in the grass beside me.

      Often in his eyes there is more to envy

      than anything human,

      and gauging the frantic influence

      of the moon, I study the small hill bleeding shadows.

      It’s easy then to affirm the Christ metaphor

      and all the tenuous ways

      tenderness seeps into the world.