[extreme environments]

Kaitlin Miller

Altar Service

I learned to wield the brass

snuffer like a headsman,

dispatch the flame and

leave no mess behind.

To watch the seasons change

in a rainbow of vestments.

That the sacrarium would empty

straight down into earth,

so Christ’s blood would not

mingle with the city’s sewage.

At mass, we had two roles—

the book or the cup.

I preferred book, less literal vessel,

human podium for the priest.

I excelled at going inanimate, I was told,

in an orientation of third graders.

Knees unlocked as not to faint,

breath (chest) constrained, gaze upwards.

And when the hot lights came on:

Father's (God's) words.

Whiff of God’s morning coffee.

Patchy spots in His shave.

God's deliberate pauses. His wandering

eye meeting mine.

Cool metal of God’s rings that brushed

my fingers as He turned the page.

God’s graying temples. God’s golden book.

God’s empty promise. God's noble cause.

I, in my immaculate robe, God’s

eager acolyte. God’s baited flock.

God's burning candles. My ruddy face.

My growing sentience. My bud of shame.

An Act of Contrition

Are you going to hurt me?

Do you want to be hurt?

That room leads to Hell. Your mother,

desperate to scare you from running off

during mass again, gravely miscalculates.

You see it in dreams: a green shag carpet,

hallowed, dappled Damask with sunlight

through a wood divider. A place for

the damned to kneel and bear their neck

to whomever (whatever) slithers up

from behind the screen to meet them.

You’re not an angel, are you?

I’ve asked myself that

many times.

Another Sunday, you feel it breathing

across the nave and, during Communion,

slip away. You half expect an immolation

when the door clicks behind, a booming

voice from bolls of flame that shatters

the floor of your jaw. Instead: the birch-skin

walls, their chalky plaster cracked, make the seat

in the room’s center feel lonely, engulfed by

blankness. Cautious, you approach the bench.

Are you afraid?

I don’t think so.

I am always afraid.

No shadow through the partition, but stained

glass bears the scene of Christ emerging

from a rabbit-hole tomb—upturned eyes,

toothed halo. Studying the crimson slash

of St. George’s Cross, something whips you

in the face, sends you scrambling toward

the blasting organ, trembling at the blood

on your fingertips when you draw them back.

But Christ, He keeps staring, impassive,

absolved, bored by the sky above your head.

silas denver melvin