The story of the missed papal blessing,

excluding unions, sits on the news 

page next to spring breakers running 

into sunshine’s water, so casual 

readers contrast injustice and excess 

before crouching in the dark,

contemplating the thousand ways

we cut the cosmos: countries, church, 

broadsheets, time, people we like, 

how close dawn is, things we can 

explain, and the last unfailing belief

that somehow it might all be re-

assembled. As if we’d discover that

no one is missing. Nobody lost faith,

fell out love, or drowned in the open sea