The Bell Ringer's Wife

So maybe he's not the most handsome man

in the city, and his clothes smell of bats and incense.

When he comes home to me with his rope-scarred arms

and echo-filled head,

I know he will attend to my needs in other ways,

watching my lips and feeling the tremolo

of my heart—it's the carillon

we play together, this silent tintinnabulation of ours,

a day-long

caesura between the iron peal of everything else.

As for his hump, it is no more

gibbous than my own

fleshly burden,

wherein the churchly nave of which

a son or daughter climbs

and chimes, searching for hidden bells.