Words: Leonie Martin
We cannot know this legendary spire
without her malformed spine. And yet the ancient
shoulders bear their leaded chevrons lightly
like a cloak silvering her vertebrae
through seven centuries of rain. Otherwise
the eastward tilt could not puzzle you so, nor could
a tear stagger down the flecked cheek
to that graveyard where chastened giants turn.
Otherwise this church would seem just one
of many, striving for the stars of heaven
and would not stoop to whisper to the broken:
would not, in all its crooked harmony,
sing of mercy: for here there is no voice
that does not call you; you must change your heart
