Saturday Afternoon at Queen of All Saints Church in Fort Greene

This is a place of people moving

up and down, kneeling to be supplicant

despite hymns that lift them up.

The only real motion is you.

I want to yell hosanna. Instead I follow you,

holding my hands out to this lord

the priest loves, and believe that he

believes. Pews are dusted with old light

the way the afternoon diffuses through ancient trees.

It is something that only happens in churches,

coaxing the sun in gothic windows

with gothic feelings of total delight,

the way a child experiences a forest,

with switchblade ferns that snap

suddenly out, and mad blossoming pink-petal eyes

warning them not to linger long

in their perilous groves of beautiful sunlight.

But we sneak fistfuls of radiance out,

something for ourselves.

That light, however little I believe, burns eternally within.

Perhaps you are more eternal than I will ever give you credit for.

The priest leads in right feeling, this feeling right

with you on this Saturday afternoon, though I had wanted

to go to the Frick and pretend I was O’Hara.

I gaze up at the stained glass windows

raised high to show me the spirit-path—

red-robed Gabriel annunciating to Mary

who smiles with uncertainty and surprise,

and wonder why angels turned up in both our stories,

why I walked through this door with you today,

your hands open to the dream of church,

and my hands, so long in my pockets, opening too.

We leave when others take communion,

with feelings so various that light follows us

and bursts into bloom on the sidewalk.

I slip my shadow into my pocket and feel,

bless you, blissful; we have stolen the swanky feelings.