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Church Falls

by Jane Monson
©


The roof quotes Gothic, then Romanesque. The floor understands neither, its aisle stone tongue cracked and splintered, each flag its own fit. The ground looks starved. Rugs are cast like bones; the dips and folds make flesh or skeleton of the faces that pattern the cloth. Each look is of a tight or a loose order according to the flow of the weave. Smoke contorts above the fabric, then cuts out and sinks into the design. Incense fills the unstitched gaps. Stutters from the organ mark the air. The minister opens his mouth as if to yawn, falls away from the lectern; static returns in his voice.
A marble falls from the pocket of a boy and tells us where the rug ends and the stone begins; he lifts another to his smile and swallows it, tugs at his mother’s sleeve. Tugs again.

Prose Poem from Speaking Without Tongues (Cinnamon Press: Oct 2010)
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