#lampads

NYMPHS

Before those years

I never stepped foot in a church

Aside from the time I was carried in, in a white dress

To be dipped in water like an unclean thing

*

It wasn't the first but I remember it the best:

Square built, white walls, no Catholic cathedral

Carpeted stairs down to basement lined with linoleum smell

Stacked chairs and buzzing lights and the tape-marked tack-stuck walls

Continually rented out

Throughout my childhood I filed through uncountable numbers of church basements - youth choir, Girl Guides, community plays

During breaks I read or

(More likely)

I explored the hallways until it was time to get back to practice

*

I had never known a church that wasn't:

Closed down, quieted, shadowed

Pale papered Bibles and flyers stacked

Lights off, stained glass back lit by the orange of street lamps

(even now, when I think of the Cross my mind bursts with tangerine thoughts)

During the early spring snow, once, I saw palm fronds stood like ghosts, like sentinels, in the foyer

I always looked but I seldom stepped in

Because the pews felt like they were sleeping and I did not know how to apologize

If I woke them up

*

Sometimes I wonder who was in that church with me as I peered past that threshold

I want to know who showed me the slowly growing part of myself that