Maggie Lopez

Unfinished lady        her steeples pierce the sky’s mind
she sits a dark stare in her eyes on the ross, her throne of rock
and watches us from the street into town
fighting the wind to find her

She is a place between prayer and bone
carved stone and telling stories
her five ribs hold us to her nave
as Mary holds her baby against the altar
and the thirteen pillars     each their own spine     are still
and mason hands have loved her         made her solid where she stands

but kneeling you can hear her fragile sway
the way her catacomb shelves her broken pieces
only a candle lit in the south aisle of her soul           and she wept