You must believe, and I do, believe
in the blood of my cousin thrice removed
who takes up copper rods to unearth
Civil War dead of the Franklin Campaign
whose father and grandmother witched

wells. Believe in the bartered blood
of Jesus, the Baptist cracker in my teeth.
Believe in these coat-hanger rods, plain
as the grail, as the questioning lips
at Gethsemani’s table. Believe in the fairy

ring of my backyard, the already gangly
tomatoes, Kinnebecks, chard sails hoisted,
the bed of lilies sounding brief horns
on Father’s Day. Believe the rods will
bend to Earth’s shaky mantle and tremble

as I approach the old cistern, plugged
with river rocks, buried in green
just as the tracks where he used to park
have grassed over. And they do, the rods,
nod inward, toward whatever depth

channeled April rains for whatever
generations removed from my dailiness
under the same roof, from my turning
of days’ deckled pages. Believe,
and I do, in watertables untapped,

tremors unfelt, in rods divining my move
from this world’s slippery source
to the next, realigned as if breath never
caught or turned askew, as if gravity’s
field or faith never held me dear.