by David Keplinger
The church inside the church
was built at the base of the city of churches, a town
by the railway station.
You might think you are not walking inside
a metaphor; you might forget that a small yellow insect
is not an allegory
that has landed on your book.
*
In the Hermitage there are caves
each the size
of the church built inside the cathedral at the bottom
of the mountain. Simone, every part of the anatomy
has some corresponding other part,
even the ball of the knee and its heaviness on marble, high
into low, and low on high.
*
I am ready for a change, I said,
after all this preparation.
The change for the worse will do, God answered.
I only barely stepped inside.
And I stayed very briefly,
I bought a vial of oil
from a beggar and he wrapped it in a handkerchief he pulled,
with some prestige, out of the folds of his coat.
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