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Aug 31
poem
Yellow Sweater's picture
Yellow Sweater

Open

1

The church was locked. I rattled the handle, trying to force my way through the smoked glass door. It was noon and hot. I just wanted God or Love or Shade or perhaps to drink the Holy Water. I cursed the pope, slammed my fist against the cherry wood frame, then turned back towards the street.  

I stood in the middle of the road, my fingers splayed, the sun pouring over my head, in through my hands. Slowly, I walked back towards my house, retracing the path I had etched down the hill.  

This is what four years have come to: a school in the distance, an empty church on a hillside, a road, a home.  

Should I pray? Right here on the concrete, between steps? 

Or should I wait till next week?  

2 

here is the church 
and here is the steeple,  
and here are the doors  
and here are the people.  

I feel only my bones, 
curved into trusses  
under the weight  
of an absent faith.  

my rib cage is a fist  
of hidden fingers,  

reaching towards  
a heart of empty space, 

pulsing dully,  
hungry for mass. 

I can not open: 

the church  
or the steeple  
or the doors  
or the people.   

I hear the priest mumble, over and over again,  
what sounds like a prayer but is actually an offering:  
body of Christ, body of Christ, body of Christ...  

but these hands are pressed shut and unsatisfied,  
unsure how to pray, how to capture 
the silence between psalms, between their palms. 

these bones are not stone  
and this body is not bread.     

3 

A person  
   is a church  
        is a window 

is the sun setting at the end  
of the lane.  

leave your shoes beside the door,  
because here we are holy 

and wrapped in sheets that  
could be funeral shrouds  

if we want.  
Or we could never die,  

and instead, wash each day  
in the morning rain. 

A person 
   is an alter 
       is the glass 

is the sun sheltered  
behind the clouds.  
 
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Posted: 08.31.21
Yellow Sweater's picture
About the Author: Yellow Sweater
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Discussion

Comments

  1. Treblemaker
    Aug 31, 2021

    your first paragraph was really so discriptive I felt like i was right next to you. I always have to read your poems a few times bc i find knew things to love about it each time :)

    I write because the music of language spoke to me in books and I wanted to make a beautiful noise to answer back ~ Lee Williams.

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  1. Yellow Sweater
    Sep 01, 2021

    Thank you so much!!!

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  1. S.Reid
    Aug 31, 2021

    With each reading of this beautiful poem, I keep finding something new to think about. I love all of it, and I especially love the way you introduce the children's rhyme in part 2. It's a surprise, but it's so perfect and irresistible – I can't help but go through the motions of the interlocking fingers for the church, the steeple, and the wiggling, restless people. The layers upon layers of this poem, Yellow Sweater, they build and build. Magnificent!

    YWP Executive Director
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  1. Yellow Sweater
    Sep 01, 2021

    Aw! thank you!

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  1. cedar
    Sep 04, 2021

    “I just wanted God or Love or Shade or perhaps to drink the Holy Water.” XD brilliant line. Very interesting and beautiful read.

    P.S. PT 1 reads like something right out of G. K. Chesterton. :D

    Dear Lord, please put your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth.

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  1. Yellow Sweater
    Sep 05, 2021

    Thank you so much!!! I am going to have to check out G.K. Chesterton now!

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