so guess what, one day
I found a key (to a closet (in the church.))
and it was very dark and dusty
in there &
the ladder nailed to the wall was only wide
enough for
one
foot
at-a
time,
so, it’s lucky that
I’m skinny enough to wri-i-iggle my shoulders
up and through the hole in the
closet’s web-trailing ceiling.

I clambered up there and into this black
forest.
Plants were sprouting
up in big rills and clumps--
stalks thin as my finger and
pipes wider than my waist,
some fading up into the ceiling’s darkness...
others squatting low, and glaring up
at me with One. black. eye.
they were all deathly still.

Then,
the creaking boards, the black forest, the cramped path of unmarked dust that winds between the pipes, all that just
SIGHED and VIBRATED,
and with a hisssing hoarsse
!shhhhhhhh...
breathed!
and my heart just stops!!! BAM!





{cricket}


and i feel ****** into a dark mouth! i am caught and trapped by this black closet’s maw andI’mwaitingfor Godknowswhat tocomewrigglingfromthepipes-- ! --!
and then guess what?:

!b’URsting up its throat
is a SONG!
slowlyand Suddenly,
a blaring, screaming,
golden
!EAgle of a chord
that s(oa)rs and c’RASHES into anotherand another one
all rising and falling,
champing at the bit until One Thousand hhums and shhivers
fill each pipe.

and it feels like
holding ten coins in a stack and making them jump-clink-clickity-HOP together--
oh, it feels like
pushing your fingertips into a bucket of cold paint
it feels like the moment after jumping off of a tall tree
it feels like un-rippling your braided hair with both hands
like a songbird’s claws curling about your finger,
like closing your eyes in a hot summer-sun
and falling asleep in a hammock

it feels like holding a blacksnake
that curls and struggles strong against your wrists,

that’s what this church ***** feels like.

I’m gonna **** the genius that started playing while I was in there.