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JEFFREY MORGAN

The Insomniac's Guide to Empty Churches


I like how the pew implies the body

has a listening angle, 
 
how the rows remind you of being 
 
the only person in a boat. 
 
I like the ribbons in the pages 
 
like tongues that must 
 
be abandoned to describe astonishment,

and the narrowness of the central aisle--

its patience and economy dispelled 
 
in the expanse overhead.

The things we say to God

in the rose light and geometries of stained glass

or the darkness of more desperate hours

or both--I like that you only get to be alone 
 
with some of your decisions. 
 
Maybe grace is made of the many 
 
forgotten things and lost parts 
 
of the composite, how you can be

so startled by the guttural

echoing of the wood 

as you shift your weight to rise.  


 
115  The Paris-American

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Jeffrey Morgan is the author of Crying Shame (BlazeVox, 2011). New poems appear, or will soon, in Barrow Street, Bat City Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Pleiades, Third Coast, and West Branch, among others. He lives in Bellingham, WA and blogs occasionally at Thinnimbus.tumblr.com.

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