I have carried in my coat, black wet 

with rain. I stand. I clear my throat.



My coat drips. The carved door closes

on its slow brass hinge. City noises— 



car horns, bicycle bells, the respiration

truck engines, the whimpering 



steel in midtown taxi brakes—bend

in through the doorjamb with the wind 



then drop away. The door shuts plumb: it seals

the world out like a coffin lid. A chill, 



dampened and dense with the spent breath

of old Hail Marys, lifts from the smoothed



stone of the nave. I am here to pay

my own respects, but I will wait: 



my eyes must grow accustomed

to church light, watery and dim.



I step in. Dark forms hunch forward

in the pews. Whispering, their heads 



are bowed, their mouths pressed

to the hollows of clasped hands. 



High overhead, a gathering of shades

glows in stained glass: the resurrected 



mingle with the dead and martyred

in panes of blue, green, yellow, red. 



Beneath them lies the golden holy 

altar, holding its silence like a bell,



and there, brightly skeletal beside it,

the organ pipes: cold, chrome, quiet 



but alive with a vibration tolling

out from the incarnate 



source of holy sound. I turn, shivering

back into my coat. The vaulted ceiling 



bends above me like an ear. It waits:

I hold my tongue. My body is my prayer.