Revelation

I am ten, sitting on your sofa. 
I watch as you paint and talk. 
Your voice is a swallow, 
which sometimes loops through the Andes, 

spins over the terraced slopes 
of Machu Pichu, then dips suddenly 
to the bucket of pig slop by the kitchen sink, 
or hovers over Little Bryant’s shot-off toe. 

It is August. You recite Revelation. 
Grandchildren bang through the back door, 
interrupt the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. 
They ask for glasses of milk, take you away from 

the canvas you have tacked on the living room wall.
Cattlemen pass through the front door. 
Their barnyard boots crisscross your Persian carpet.
You pause to chat, then paint again— 

I remember you giving Moses eyes, 
so he could watch Pharaoh’s daughter 
lift him from the Nile.