Entering St. Rose of Lima
Thanks to it being a feast day, we
Children were a bouquet of organdy
Under candlelight processing like little
Marys down the aisle. Outside, no
Secret language, no sacramental mystery
Protected us.
It was this church, mosaic, high altared, its
Rites all silk canonical embroidery, that was our
Ingress to a spiritual life, that lifted us above
The broken-sidewalk world given otherwise
Unto the town. Without such threshold doors,
The litany and chant and Latinate air, we’d be
Unbridled, unbaptized, only unassuming cowgirls
On Assumption Day.