[The waiting and dreamed of ritual grace…
                  —Valerie Weaver-Zercher]

  Stout as a dancehall, white clapboard and square
it stood between fields a short piece from town,
  bordered by gravel, abut by God’s acre —
this roominess anchored by pews. Through which wound
            Mother in her special vamps
                and daddy in his monkstraps
            to where a line of basins wait,

  warmish water lapping and the linen towels drape
where feet of different walks have gathered, foot-foundered
  and fit alike, for each soul to cradle, douse, and bathe
their right-hand neighbor’s heel, instep, digits found
            immaculate or blooming lint
                or faint funk or toenail paint
            Footloose, nailmangled, imp —

  most everybody’s here. There’s Auntie, who pronounces it
play-zure as she communes with Sue the drama coach,
  and Uncle, who keeps fake owls in his garden, who quizzes
Tom the sheriff (who’s ticklish) as he sprinkles his toes,
            and down at-heel Justin, who yesterday
               hunted mallards up a slough, splays
            his shovels to a wing tipped banker,

  and there, — there I am, turning over a word
in my head — catenary — for parabolas that fountains
  form, word for the U a necklace makes, curve
an upside-down arch, as I towel off a sprouting
            cousin’s fallen arches, anklebone,
               all thirty-three joints known and unknown
            that carry me away from home.