Paperclips

Let us count the number of paperclips that we have placed in the shelves
Where the paper is kept and the water for the small fridge beneath the desk.
There are pens in boxes standing next to the binder clips but we counted these yesterday.
Next to me is a restless angel. It is mine, in that I have the training of it.
Where is the home? Where is the hearth?
There are wings dragging through dust already swept through.
The closet buzzes with leftover hallway lights.
We can hear the receptionist murmuring into the phone.
Where is our household? Sustained by this, I breathe.
A prayer that is more a placation--this brings us the paycheck,
And then the apartment, the food, the car.
We depend upon this closet, upon the way these pens never vanish,
The way the paperclips are always available, the way the paper
Is always laid to rest in the belly of the copier.
Restless angel follows after, brushing the sides of the hallway,
Blocking the doorway to a small office.
Why are we here?
This is home.
I check the stash of paperclips in the drawer. Trust in these.
Trust in the paper, in the staplers, in the flashing light on the phone.
Trust in the chapel quiet of the hallway, the open doors, the women
Who move along the corridors. Say they are nuns, say they are votaries...
I will say they are priestesses, the angel mutters. The lights buzz.
I will say you carry your home like a shell from the shore.
The drawer holding my purse shudders.
I will say that it takes decades to learn to turn your prayers
Into something like light and like incense and that I cannot relearn
What it means to keep such a house.