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.