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.