After dropping a box of picture hanging nails accumulated over

several houses, I was down on my knees picking

them one by one out of the cracks in the plank floor, and it occurred to me

that if one believed in a god one could believe there was a

purpose to it and someone to appeal to.  Please make this stop,

you might say.  If there was something other than a baffled dog

watching you drop one nail at a time back into the plastic box, it might

relieve you of the mistakes you made, that certain proclivity

for ruin. There would be an order to it. One task, then the next.

In Psyche’s case, she had not already done the same stupid

goddamned thing over and over in her life.  Only once, 

she lifted the lamp to look closer at her lover though she had been told

specifically not to.  She lit the lamp and was so taken by the wings

on his back that she tipped hot oil on his shoulder.  We can

understand this.  The light flaming up in that dark room, her arm

trembling, the smell of their sex in the warm bed. We want it to be

okay. To look that closely. I would have

liked it. You told me you couldn’t do it anymore. I watched you pack

your truck, take pictures off the walls, load your horses onto the trailer. 

I was surprised by how calm they were.  Facing forward,

marching right up the ramp.