I asked the Lord that I might grow in faith and love and every grace . . .

Assembled in a row, like dolls. Their clothes are tattered, skirts and sweaters, what mother dressed them in for school that morning or what they threw on to run out and play in afterward: a Fair Isle knit, Rainbow Brite rain boots, knee socks and buckled shoes, Pele jersey, brand new sneakers, sundresses and jelly sandals, flip flops, plaid and stripes, corduroys and blue jeans, bows and braids, Chicago Cubs baseball cap, bare feet, candy bracelets, stick-on earrings shaped like pink hearts, Mickey Mouse pajama tee with matching pajama shorts (too loved to be worn only at night), cowboy hat and cut-offs. Knees bruised, arms scratched, summer freckles and winter mittens, gap-toothed grins hovering unsmiled behind cracked lips, here or there a spate of healing chicken pox, or a recalcitrant wart, or a scratched and infected mosquito bite, or a scab picked too many times, or a rash from causes unknown—mother was going to get him to the doctor next week, it was on the schedule!

Always enough time until it's too late, until time has run out.

In their row, cheeks pale and waxen, fingernails crusted with residue of a late-night-horror-film terror no longer playing in their teddy-bear brains but once, in a time uncertain and chronologically misplaced, more real than anyone who loved them would've liked to imagine.

Might more of His salvation know and seek more earnestly His face . . .

No hunger, here. No thirst. The lamb, he took care of his little wolves! Their parents need not worry, for their growing fangs have been pruned, their budding carnality curtailed, the opportunity for obsession and posssession preempted, their years of grave and terrible crimes evaded altogether, sweet darlings. Forever they'll remain in this gentle embrace, free of stain, avoiding the puncture of age's needle, the injection of life's many poisons. Pure and simple, they reign over a kingdom of what they were before it all, the bluebirds of Limbo's forest.

The hands, they're almost ready, blackening fingertips where the prints swirl, where the knuckles wrinkle, where the tender bones of the wrists make themselves known. The skin across the back and round the palms is soft and velveteen, the stuff of rabbit kits. Who can say of the rest but that the hands are good, for the maggot that eateth of the apple taketh of the flesh as well. All is spoiled in this world; none can escape the scars of time. All must pass.

Except for these—

—they shall live forever.

Instead of this He made me feel the hidden evils of my heart . . .

Decay grows old upon these walls, thick braids of Spanish moss slick with black mold, the rills of mercury between the rocks bristling with translucent, sightless creatures, most too small for the naked eye in this bleak gloom. What life moves here moves in stunted growth, never birthed and never dying, always throbbing tiny organs in moist bodies made to withstand the rigid angles of such a place.

Sanctuary.

The word whispers between his trembling lips, cuts through the stagnancy, copulates in the shadows. He watches them, those umbrous patches, wary of what folds between their layers, but he knows, too, that whatever lingers in this place, it will not touch what belongs to him.

How many times he's waited for the turning! And yet the moment never ceases to arouse him. His notes are copious, his observations eternal. For he did not desire this task, and yet it was asked of him, and perfection required. So many years have come and gone—so many little wolves padding on furred claw-clicking paws, ruby tongues lolling, eyes rolling, nostrils steaming, so near the unavoidable cliffs from which no mortal who's leapt has ever managed to return . . .

He's saved them from salivating, offered them salvation, instead.

And let the angry powers of Hell assault my soul in every part . . .

What sorrows he holds are his alone, this lamb who tends the wolves. His lullabies haunt the hollow as he tousles tufts of crisp hair, kneels in contrition before innocence.

They haven't the mouths to pray for him, anymore; they haven't the eyes to weep.

He's not always been this way, wound in wool, wooden toothed and foamy lipped—he'd asked for guidance, begged for goodness, for grace, for holiness. On swollen knees for hours he'd remained, scraped raw his grasping, groping fingertips (the remnants of which even now remain, dried slime along wall and ground, shrine and shrub). But in vain was this self-mortification, for his will was usurped, his unnaturalness only inflamed, and his purpose secured.

The lamb bleats for the shepherd when lost and alone, when his mother has gone and his father was never known, when danger draws nigh from the valley of the shadow of death. The lamb entrusts his fleecy heart, his spongy tongue, his black and glimmering eyes, his dainty hooves, his wearied form unto the hands and arms of the shepherd.

What a tragedy it is, then, when the shepherd carves the soft flesh of his charge, when he makes a meal of his lamb.

For it is said that the wicked shall walk the earth and carry out their evil, and even that evil shall find its place. Again the time draws near, again the lamb must rise, and again . . .

Again.