Sestina

A tuxedo-clad piano
plays, and somewhere else, a woman
in a red-haired building
earns herself a nickel.
“Tell me you love
me,” a man commands. God

sees her, and God
hears the jazz from the piano,
and God wonders which one made Him cry. He is love,
the stony woman
had heard once, from a nickel
nun in a cathedral building.

The pressure is building.
She gives to God
what is God’s, and to Caesar what is nickel.
The faint wails of the drunken piano
harmonize with the woman
sighing half-desperately in thespian love.

She wasn’t thinking about it. I love
the black costumes of each building;
the blue contacts of a woman
who has become a god.
The action mechanism in the piano
is all alloy, part nickel.

People are all nickel-
smiths. Isaiah knew this. Deaf to love,
we settle for the jazz dribbling from every piano.
Nehemiah took up re-building
the city of the Lord, the God
of Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and that other woman,

Hagar. “Get rid of that slave woman
and her son,” Sarah said. “He will never share a nickel
of inheritance.” God
remembers her tone of voice. Love
was shelved. Building
commenced on the piano.

The black-and-blue piano fades with the woman.
Every building is made of nickel.
The Apostle John said love comes from God.