things i've done in churches

i. inside it is nothing like new york in august. the sounds of traffic are turned away at the vestibule like false penitents, the heat and air and light made chaste with a sprinkling of holy water. the pews are filled with people who want to be there and people who just walked by, people with nowhere else to go and somewhere else to be. without noticing they shed their skins when they walk through the door, letting the pain out to breathe. they will be healed here. at the altar stand the supplicants, turned to face all the closed and open hearts, dwarfed by the room's ascent to ward heaven. the space is too vast, too vacant with god to be filled by their dreaming. the task is impossible, essential. but soon the air begins to swell with the chord change, the heartbreak. it quickens and stirs like a tide just woken. urgent, the strengthening cadence pushes against the limits of the vacancy it's filled, bursts through like a heart broken by too much joy, makes everything that's still come to life, wakens every pain from its secret home. the brokenness and the humanness are what sanctify the sanctuary. when the music stops, so does the silence. ii. the church is open until ten o clock at night and so she goes there looking for an answer, moving alone through the darkness, anointed with cool night air. the church is dark and probably empty, and she tests the knob before pulling the heavy outer door and slipping inside. the space seems still, and in it, her heart loosens, unfolds. she will pray in the darkness, where no one but god will see. but inside the sanctuary, someone is already frozen in grief or in sorrow, kneeling in the godlight that falls on the altar. her face is unfamiliar, but her desperation is not. the small sound of the door falling closed is enough to break the silence, and the girl on the altar wakes up then, turns from the light into the darkness, is gone before she can cover her eyes to keep from seeing her private pain, to apologize for interrupting. she can't pray either, now that the solitude is gone, isn't sure she knew how in the first place. she leaves the demons at the altar and turns toward home. iii. what might also be sacred: the knife seaming the flesh of the mango, its teeth drawing the sticky sweetness toward the wound the foam rising to the top of the coffee brewed in silent early darkness the tremor of the hand in the moment between striking the match and lighting the flame waking up to rest in the space between sleep and consciousness the space between each heartbeat filled with blood and love