the boy enters when he knows others will not be there in prayer--their silent entreaties to a god he is not sure listens or cares
morning after mass is best; the bouquets are fresh he can smell them once the scent of the early worshipers fades:
the pipe smoke from the old man's coat the widow's perfume which lingers longer than the ammonia stench of the holy homeless who is there every day
Christ watches over this: a white marble man bolted to a cross, witnessing this spectacle for millennia
long before this cold statue was placed in this cathedral, he was there, the slaughtered lamb cursed to die again and again
that is how the boy sees it; not a promised life eternal, but the same death anon, anon
the pounding of the stakes, the blood offering: the old man, the woman, the mendicant all crucifying him again with each plaintive prayer
once their odors fade, the funeral sprays, the bouquets remain--cut, dying flowers, a fragrant impermanence with no expectation for life beyond their time in the vase--no imploring a godhead for forgiveness
no demand for blood and perpetual death
only a little water for their brief journey in fragile glass