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Mercy Instead,
go see your church on a Sunday and meet your
I caught it off guard. It tried to brush cousins in the fourth pew. Put your hands on
the cobwebs from its ethereal blue eyes the rough quilt-covers of the hymnals and smell
before I could see it was unattended. the mothball lady in green behind you. You can
turn around and say hello if you want to.
If you fling open the door to a church,
when the pastors, and the priests, and Just be happy,
the congregation are all gone elsewhere, and when you leave with the sun on your face,
the musty smell of loneliness will just be with old family songs trembling in your heart
evaporating up to the arched ceiling, don't look back.
to hover there until you leave.
Churches are sad when they are empty.
You can feel it, if you are still enough,
still as a tired child trying to calm night Lisa Dale- VanAuken
waters of a pool to a glass.

If you are sensitive, you can feel it even
after you have pressed your cheek to the
dark smooth wood of the first or second
pew, because really, you will understand
that you are not enough.

You should bring friends,
multitudes of song singers who resonate
prayer off of the white walls and ceiling.

But if you cannot,
you must pretend you did not notice
the church cover itself up like a naked
woman, embarrassed and frantic in an
unlocked bathroom. You'll have to be
discreet; pray or sing away the mourning.

And when you drive by at night try
not to look at the building glowing
pale and alone holy under the black
sky. Keep your eyes set on the road,
because outside of your car windows
is a cadaver, a ghost floating soullessly
over the bending hillsides. It has many
unmotivated eyes, and drooping arch
wrinkles around the doors. So, don't stare.