In this heat wave everyone shifts
         self-consciously into church,
                   pulling at their clothes

to ease the insistent chafe
         of rayon and polyester
                   already dampening to stains.

But still a candle
          burns Pentecostal in the back,
                   the allegory stronger than this need

to press hands and cheeks
         against the cool stone walls. On the curb,
                   a street evangelist voices

Spanish verses from a Bible
         into a microphone, his shoulder
                   heaving to a single burst

of amens inside, his voice projecting
         across the street to a woman mumbling
                   about tomatoes shriveled in their skins

and the sterile sand of her lot.
         I’m walking by, fingering two token
                   in my pocket, feeling the stretch