Notre Beau-Pere, or, Planes of Abraham

There was a snow-shroud thrown across the town’s stunned sprawl. The Father watched the fishbelly sky refract bouquets in cathedral glass as it came down in a lacy fall, while the wind scritched wishes in every window, an old, longing doubt scrawled behind the town's work-red eyes as he felt mother winter fumble for his hand, frail woman in thin shawl burdened with a call he took to himself alone. The Name grew steel-blue where there'd been spine. The sky in his throat told him open his eyes to see, to show the town what they were seeking, so he left them with the winter wind, went the wood that called to him. Three days the sunsets stalked vulpine opal and blood dropped down circled the town, birds of prey. The fourth day fell away, and the dusk gathered them the town’s children, coarse-pored, their eyes unshriven, limbs unshaven, hair aflame when they saw him come home, the wind behind him, the Name humming a rose in grey snow, then they asked, in hushed inflections, hiccoughed questions, aneutral tones, what their Father had seen as he drew closer on the night with dwindling flashlights they knew—The Image of the Name was grace that ate his tinder gaze, the cause the caustic tears that lined his face’s grey planes with ashen trees.