Donna
Vorreyer

        I recognize my body, not in the ecstatic splay of limbs and breasts 

        he named Eternal Springtime, not in The Thinker’s poise, but in 

        the slumped shoulders of The Helmet Maker’s Wife, both of us 

        ravaged by gravity and a parade of days. Such tender decay. 

        Seventy-two hours away from you, and I am bone tired, empty as 

        a windsock, looking for something to shape the void. I read the title 

        for a cast of hands—The Cathedral. Tall fingers bent and sturdy, 

        palms facing to fashion a nave, and I recall the childhood rhyme—

        here is the church, here is the steeple, open the door and see all 

        the people. A game of dexterity, another remnant of youth. 

        Looking again, I see their curve as refuge, and I vow right there 

        that I will worship always at the cathedral of your hands, let 

        your arms be the altar on which I offer up my body, 

        supplicant, waiting to be whole again, filled.