A Man Sees Himself as a Cathedral
Explanations trend toward the eternal,
trained on a gasp of insight in which I realize
I am an organism of thought, a cathedral
of flesh and breath buttressed by granite groins.
Cement steadies my touch. Lichen covers
my face. My bowels move through the history
of space. Bats roost in my belfry.
When I could walk tall among the tales
of children, I lived in the air of singing.
My mother fed me ham and eggs.
I purred softly through the night, wanting
nothing, mindless as a ball of cotton.
Now that I’m a fixed geography, is there any reason
to change? When a storm comes it batters my roof,
and I realize I miss nothing about being human.
If I were a man again, I would fear my daily employment,
dread the way light comes at dawn to freshen
my eyes. I would need what no one can give me
and live in a house where no one could find me.
Stained-glass windows look on transparency.
Concrete traps my mind. I hear the organ
and the choir, the labor of patience. I am the priest
and the congregants, the stones that constitute
my walls and the wind that brushes against them,
a body politic of masonry and memory.
Joel Fry
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