Arrangements for Economizing Worship

On holidays it's normal for the twinkling of a star to flick

icing on provisional cakes.  To rev but not meander:

Striking patterns at the airport that replicate in wheatfields,

strings of Xmas lights spiraling up through branches

of spruce where their loops stretch like springs, the boughs

bent as though weighted with chinchilla roosts: that's

the strain maintained in well-toned tendons—Pluck one:

in no small way you pluck them all.  I'm talking about

Electra's good night's sleep—her first in a year that started

with her brother killing Clytemnestra, though both are steeped

to the elbows in blood.  But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

It's sadness more than evil now: Aunt Euridice's funeral

lunch at a small spa in Cold Spring.  A chill, cloudy April.

A fitful afternoon.  I ask Orfeo to stop by the under-

world.  I want to see her walk with the sky beneath her:

Sweet Eurydice—attractive in ways I'll always remember.

She isn't coming back, though.  Abuela Athena blames our

admiration: our turning out to witness stops the song.