Tactile Heaven

Zachary Howatt
tosterosfiction.blogspot.com

@creativewritingbyzacharyhowatt
@Tost_Eros

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INDEX

Imagine Heaven (whatever it is) like a hammer:
    To fix all this shabbiness,
    To bust the comrades out of cages,
    To build the idyllic home,
    To nail your feet to all the answers—
    Heaven. Not a place, but a tool.

I heard the crack of a driving hammer—
    Distant, but certainly a hammer—
    And I deflated, relieved,
    My tension unbinding my shoulders,
    Relaxing like silk blue ribbons—
    Salvation came for one of us!

I lied. I heard nothing. I feel the same.

I mean, imagine. This tool, who could wield it?
Is Heaven’s power to save the same
If it can’t swing itself? Must I do it?
In human hands, isn’t Heaven a hazard
To mishandle? To injure oneself, the desperate?

See, I can’t think of Heaven without maligning it.
Even a secular Heaven—earthly, tactile,
Something I could find here—
I doubt it like the one in the sky,
A happiness I can’t keep tabs on,
Bound out of reach by despair,
Dancing in the corners of my eyes,
Never there when I turn to look.

These hands obey a brain that can’t believe.
So Hope, wherever you are, you devil,
Drive me out of my head for one night at least,
And I’ll give you a year of my life
For each minute of freedom that follows.
Give me that, please, and tremble to imagine
The beautiful things these hands would do.