Seraphim

—after Dzvinia Orlowsky

This is the hour of churchyard haze,
the slow light of the sun gathered
around the heads of saints. Dusk pauses
to gather songbirds in a grey sack.
I am a sanctuary, razed by fire.
The priests being to descend, one by one,
to pick through my debris for sins.
I read the scriptures I hid beneath my altar
written in the long, illegible lines of breath.
Shadows begin to congregate, feathers
falling across the words I don’t understand.