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Feast Day Fair

The blue church smoked.

Stiff and blest, we shook

our cloaks out and cut

camp. It was dawn,

the sheep going left

then right in panic,

ewes trembling under

trestle tables. The feast

was spoiled—a wreck

of meat and copper.

The image of the saint

half-sunk in tallow, tilted,

and bodies, three of them,

still wearing their crusted

habits. The stilt-walker

swung in his tree.

from Poetry Northwest WEBMore by Montreux Rotholtz from the library

Copyright © Montreux Rotholtz
Used with the permission of the author
on behalf of Poetry Northwest.

Published in Montreux Rotholtz Poems

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