I Call It Joy
this being unnoticed. Sitting like this
next to the stone lamb outside the Cathedral.
My lost soul, which prefers the stone lamb
to the living God. Prefers these deep shadows
to the summer day. The way he took me
all those years ago, shattered me
so that fifty-seven years later, I might sit
next to the smoothness of this stone lamb,
know the stone joy of being unnoticed.
People go in the Cathedral all day long,
visiting their God on their knees. That man
who betrayed me when I was a boy,
first held me up to a tree so I would know
what smell lemon blossoms have.
Credit
Copyright © 2017 Jim Moore. Used with permission of the author. This poem originally appeared in Kenyon Review, November/December 2017
Date Published
04/23/2018