Church-hopping on a Good Friday
like a movable party 12 to 3—dark portico
and large open doors of unlit churches,
the mourners shuffling in and out,
tasting sermons, groping the darkness,
brushing up against the silent cold
walls. They stray to a neighboring church,
where the kids are playing ball in the street,
on holiday from school. The mothers pin
doilies to their daughters’ heads or folded
tissues will do. They enter and nod off
in the benches, the same as those who
couldn’t stay awake for an hour in the garden
with Him. The extinguished sanctuary lamp
holds its breath above the gaping gold
tabernacle, and the marble floor of the vestibule
stretches cold and smooth as the sepulcher.
The old women in front, kneeling and bowing,
chiffon scarves covering their frosty perms, pause
and stage-whisper to their friends; they run
quickly through their beads, never finishing;
it’s their own dash against inertia, still holding
their bodies up over the earth, before being
picked up and shoveled back under, where
He lay for three days.
Some circle around the stations like those
on Calvary who follow a Criminal, sandaled
feet in April heat. Eggs cooked and cooling
at home on the stove. The children fidget
and shuffle, one cries dangling off a shoulder,
another arches back and wails up into the vault.
The stained glass figure shows Thomas’
probing finger swallowed up in the red wound
on Christ’s chest. The bright windows spill
crayon colors over the gray floor and flash
across the scooped seats. Cracked vinyl
red pads soften the blow of kneecap
bent to chilly worship.
Marble mother sits in a crevice cradling
a lost son: witness to torture, unbelief,
the hateful screams hurled at the miracle
worker, forgiver. Venerable pain—
of strength and weeping, of holding fast.
Good Friday which sits in the pit of the stomach,
fasting on coffee grounds and the acid of an apple.
Touching the purple draped relief of a slain King,
kissing the warm wood with cold lips –
wormwood defy this.
Just wait.
