True Religion

When you’re young you think “widow” is a misprint for “window.”
Then the tarp of age gets pulled over you and the words drift apart.
There is a cleanness to good marriage that is like the Renaissance.
It is a force of beauty that tramples mere love. When the blood rushes
out of it, life goes generic and foolish. You don’t remember its face
exactly anymore. You wake up to elks in the fog, barely visible.
A beating heart turns to crickets. Widowhood is what it begets.
Savonarola destroyed Boccaccio and carnivals and jokes and icons.
That is the scent of widowhood prowling the rooms of the world.
To be a saint is to open the windows on both sides of the house.