The Religion Of Everyday Things Poem by Leah Browning

We return at nightfall, shoulders bowed, weighed down
by slights and insults. They fall from us at the door,

as everything beyond these walls recedes. The horns
and sirens, the pain and desperation that invade our outside

life: all are silenced. We join each other and sit,
and rise and sit, in unison. Then, cleansed, we bow our heads,

letting love seep over the table until even the most humble
foods—the potatoes, the salt—feel shy and deeply cherished.

When the meal ends, we find that we are pulled apart
strand by strand, that the walls and floor are as deeply connected

as our arms and legs. The elements have to weave
and reweave as we move from room to room, sitting down in one

or walking out of another. We connect almost as fluidly, bashful
as strangers. Courteous, we pass in the hallways without touching;

we close each door with the faintest sound; we say please
and thank you and God bless you, again and again, as though the act

of sneezing were a form of prayer, and we were only answering
in kind. In silence, we perform the ritual ablutions, as we always

have: bathing in the dim sunlight of the morning, washing our faces
as we undress for bed. And in the end we lift the quilts and find

each other there, waiting, every breath reverent,
every touch of skin a testament.