Susan Davis, "The Endless Story"

On the 17th day, Noah's wife went to the window
and saw only water and knew the world was lost.

On the 20th day, Noah's wife went to the window
and saw only the saturated trunk of a willow tree
bobbing between the water's surface and the water.

On the 28th day, Noah's wife went to the window
and saw the same saturated trunk of the same

willow tree bobbing between the surface and the sky
and she thought, The world could be saved. The world
could be saved. But no message was ever sent.

No one said: This is what deliverance will look like.
Pay attention. She had figured out that the curve
of her nose mirrored the curve of her spine and, not

coincidentally, the curve of the cypress tree out back.
She measured fabric by that tree. Perhaps by out-

stretched hand he meant the steadfast cypress,
its knobby branches bobbing now above the spreading
sea—barkless bones born up by a wave. The fruitless

false top a weathered palm, open and expecting.
She had learned to look for something. Maybe this.