Land at Church City

Thalia Field

From a hovering point over the red clay path (a lane dusted with blistering) her eyes follow him on stages teetering, her wings that is, wet and not quite conscious, his wings really hands playing “forward” into the past fretted grabbable; a “there” tense ensemble past tense, forward of it, pushing into a path he’s grasping: all neck, all keys, into hymn.

At last but faithfully abominable. Her eyes make tiny dervishes on the parched silence, fully parted to let loose a vowel slack in overexposed noon, scratching at opened seeds (he dances without prints for her) so that neither dares count prints, or lay them to lip in seasoned glare. His dance a pilgrim of patterns glaring too holy to mistake for mistakes.

A billboard becomes Seraph the highest angel six, whole wings of calendars open, one for each day fluttering the rocky lane like anything red, like anything she can say mistakes are like, though he’s the red one.

One mounting. One receiving. A bird forgives the beating up the entrance, as he could pardon the mention of the seventh missing day. This time holy places gather in permanent redemptions up the canyon turned off from familiar. No amenities. No public utilities. The population is bliss freak, and church.

The town above hangs for him now above, and slightly high that way. High an ordinance of loss. High an anticipated beforehand. High the genetic unfinishable. High the deepest kissed past tense. Roof of unapproachable fire escapes. That nest of churches, for lack of a better word, huddles high in his sight, on its undamnable burning seat, and hers way behind and tipping.

It is left for her to hover atheist and downward glancing. Not a single communion broached with binoculars loaded. Were eagles approaching a mile, a mouse might collapse to a print. But her wings bulk in balancing itchy devotion to “whatever,” in doctrinal “whereby.” Feathers aren’t muscles, yet oiled for repelling a rain not coming for nine hundred ninety-nine miles or years; same thing, she thinks, same thing.

And below her his knees at the gate lips of ground meets kissing. Avenue the churches or blocks and street churches, for lack of a better word, every structure a church, every never his heart repelling tourists of grace for his soon expiation, turning back a cherub, second order angel on a self-same map, a winged child mispronounced.

Out of stairs he could dispense his own suffering. Churches, for lack of a better word, bow upright to foundations set to poverty, to lift of thrice-born melancholy. One coupon of atmosphere wealthy, a bountiful vulture. How a town consumes with lacking better words than churches, yet only consumes churches. Welcome the hagiography of reflected celebrity.

His head lifts to the altar, for lack of a better word, another rumored virgin, what he’s lost the chorus sacrificed, losing denomination in their say-so. Churches, for lack of a better word, fake the orange cones at detours consummating. Welcome to your very raptured transcience of patterning. Each church re-animates eternity for a slim visitation.

Once he gains, for lack of a better word, a body’s drunken messenger, wax-wings instantly fathered, his better word falls toward offering. Tar-stained hands fly stones at one heat unimpeachable. Dust red prints wait in the tense of his tentative printing. Still high and hungry, one afflatus a scalding sunlight numb despite excessive longing. Each sweet translation of relics, cloaked in stained glass, balances skeletons before his each translation tarnishes the last translation. These sentences reflect attachments and wide glances from a sky profane of blue, as blank of believing in churches as his city is full. She believes in them on his behalf from a clueless, senseless perch.

Sacred aims at blood detachment contains mortal layers of systems. Sins patched of pine tar, mosses which don’t come this rain. Plant the animal kingdom, or any small landing. Cycling bundled roots congest with slippery stasis; an alibi lane in the depth contraption.

But high up in Church Town, for lack of a better name, a stage looses shadows inside the mission, a town unwieldy with churches, for lack of a better word, burdened with them and yet undeniably justified. Shadows and temperatures take umbrage in the testament, kneel beside dusty jubes, rolling beneath carved pews, his attention clots for shadows faithful to permanent dwellings.

His feet are likely and pious approaching scriptured ongoings. His ongoings unblamable statuary, the furnishing of flesh made undiseased. Flight as she thinks her sanctuary in motion, digging from wings into a small repeated phrase, trembling at his faith.

Or put one last way: without these churches, for lack of a better word, many denominations force face to city landings; wingspans irrelevant or wholly threaded, he would fret away the last full upholding, undo his fullblooded erection, wait: there could be another anunciation, interrupting flight.

Invisible blanks hold the doors open, they’re double and stand barely parted, but do part upon curious muscles. One body makes a street a multitude of church buildings: assemblies and abbeys, apses and mihrabs, cathedrals mandiras monestaries chapels stupas temples. He is aching in worship, and with hands that strive to forgive the height of churches, for lack of any word for faith in height, or what passes unending, she hovers too close.