Now is the time for the crucial chandelier.
Choose an hour when no one else is there,
the heat intense, the couturiers gone away.
Lead me down a circuitous route
barely speaking, the better to anticipate.
Part the leathern doors and introduce me
to the obscurest church ever visited.
Teach me about its forked history,
how it was bombed and rebombed
and sulkily rebuilt.
Point out the seminal chandelier
with its thousand-year-old brass
flung into the Tiber in a vandal’s pique.
Indicate each notch on the ruined pulpit,
the mincing lion and indignant unicorn.
Move ahead of me into the sacristy,
remarking on a particular cerement.
Reveal each nuance of your classic neck.