1. Not beauty. The un-
working, which does the thread
bare. That particular
friction.

2. The magical rubbing
that happens inside the garment.
The wear of which
one’s not aware.

3. Power unrelated to every
thing--untouchably ardent
or pure. Power not over,
but in.

4. Charity with its own volition
and inscrutable standard. We
do not know need
as it knows it: ever-attended isolation.

5. A double-gendered ending--
a thing we've muddied and
made good. The pear, the egg-
sac, zygotic syzygy--

__

I have something against numbered sections in short poems: The numbers themselves interrupt the language of the poem when one reads it aloud. But because numbers can represent both continuous progressions and series of alternative substitutions, I want them in "Gods."