I always want to start with the metal stairs
that rose over our apartment door
to theirs. Each step, for traction in snow, was patterned

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like chains of mouths, open and fanged. And in autumn
the mouths filtered the a.m. sun, spattering
the walk with vesicae piscis which translates

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to fish bladders, but means peaked halos, like almonds,
in paintings of Christ. The neighbors became our friends
because as strangers they gonged down the stairs

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to help with boxes when we moved in, and I want
to name them, but I cannot name them...