A woman like that can take a day like this, candy-coat the death in it, butter-slippery the pill to medicate the reluctant dog in all of us. A man like that offers prayers to it, flat-footed again, one hand still warm in the cookie jar. A woman like that mistakes incantation for lamentation; all the pins in all the dolls in the world can’t touch her. A man like that lives in his head, blood bumbling through screens lit by cream, spinning lake waves into sugar, cakes shaped by hands clasped to pray. A woman like that can rouse the dead, empty heaven with the trouble in her smile