Once a student asked if, at my house,
we discussed grammar over dinner,
and I laughed. Not exclusively, I said.
Tonight we are talking about adverbs,
about anyway and anyhow, whether
they’re synonyms and which better
to customize household glossolalia—
hallelujah, say. My husband asks
if I remember when Covid came
and Easter came and I outlined letters
on sheets of paper and the boys colored
them in. Hallelujah, anyway we taped
to the windows facing the sidewalk,
and what we meant was despite all this.
What we meant was even so.
Which wasn’t at all like the pineapple
someone brought to adorn the Lord’s table
this Easter—a freak among tulips
and hyacinths, stranger than daffodils,
a stranger even to the last-minute cactus—
that pineapple meant hallelujah, anyhow.
And, sure, when the Puritans said
God loveth adverbs, no doubt they meant
chastely. No doubt they assumed his favorites
were theirs, plainly and strictly, but also
God loveth the conjunctive: hallelujah,
anyway; hallelujah, any old how.
