dummy

In my Father’s house are many mansions….

O the church-thriller… holy relic,

holy naves. The platen a smorgasboard

of depraved priests and winding sheets,

swollen swollen chests. The lair is

underground and you don a hat–you are

sympatico, Frere Jacques, the stupid

semi-devout eyeglass and candle-maker,

one step from the altar. With no gold

to be found. But a respectable dagger

1/4 turn sunk in your great-coat. What

trick is this? Abandon Hope? Put down

you weapon and run–run away? So soon?

Macabre as well, so you expect a body.

She screams; the flames engulf her

womb. Up there, there was like a kind of a

vulture, over the narthex. A curious

one-way bird. It was suggestive of trust.

Then a screech; she wondered if she might

not make it. So she did the unthinkable:

she lugged the icon inside. All her weight

on it. Now, her handbag has turned thick

as a slab, as a percussive drum. There is a

sickening sense. Something truly awful

grips the apse of her fathers.