Steeple in the Static

The picket fence is chewing at the heat. Each weatherboard is holding its breath. A sedan sleeps crooked at the curb like it drove here to forget. Power lines stitch over the steeple, little cuts across the sky. Clouds rise like something almost holy that never learned to come inside. There’s a steeple in the static, and a door that won’t explain. If mercy lives inside it, why am I still out in the lane? I keep my hand on the wheel of a car that won’t turn back. There’s a steeple in the static, and my heart on the wrong side of the glass. The wires hum a thin amen between the roofs and rainless air. Every house has drawn its curtains, but the light keeps finding stairs. I was taught that every doorway has a song it lets you earn. But some doors keep you kneeling where the asphalt starts to burn. Clouds bloom over the little tower like a choir with no mouths. I can hear the summer peeling from the shutters of the house. No thunder, no siren, no answer, just a bell behind my ribs, swinging slow for all the versions of the child I could have been. There’s a steeple in the static, and a door that won’t explain. If mercy lives inside it, why am I still out in the lane? I keep my hand on the handle of a life that won’t turn back. There’s a steeple in the static, and a prayer caught under glass. Let the engine stay silent. Let the bell lose its name. I came here for an answer and left with the frame. When the tape starts to flutter, when the clouds take the roof, I will drive by slowly with the doorway holding the truth.