MEAGAN BROTHERS

OH CATHEDRALS

oh cathedrals, how could you do it? Slender burning skies, parachutes—all these dreadful days. My eyes sick, my secrets told, my little button-down unbuttoned. I'll take the first train out, I'll believe it, too. Look, you know me, my black moods, my cloudy skies. My cathedral, how you bend, like a glass full of fire, mystic thing, ordinary as sheep, weeping like death on a subway car. My flea-bite, this isn't love, this is jury duty. You hold on to me like a broken envelope, like I am what you believe in, even though I've failed, though I've landed and it was all just mirrors and string. Every night there are a thousand houses underwater, revealed beneath the moon, places we could live if we were so eager. But you are rooted, and I'm easily distracted. So we'll meet at dawn, at dusk, make our own patterns, live in the places we make with our hands, game after game of "this is the church, this is the steeple," open the doors and identify this seahorse-shaped thing, anemone, a lung, my heart, crocodile tears like stained glass weaving trails and bending like spheres to dazzle us and keep us awake for a thousand days. Aren't you glad for this? For the nighttime? For scrolls of words and secret spaces? A safe no thief can crack; we'll put it in the ocean, and there I'll wait for you. My cathedral. I'm so optimistic now, I could build a bridge to the moon, or cook your dinner. Time will tell. And aren't you glad there is no more to me than a broken hinge? Aren't you glad for this, that I'm just a simple machine?
 

Meagan Brothers lives in Asbury Park, NJ, and plays lead guitar for the Steel Pier Sinners. Which might sound pretty exciting, but in actuality she's probably just sitting around the house right now, reading back issues of Creem and listening to Marianne Faithfull records.

More of Meagan's work may be found at Poetz2003, Poetz2002 and Poetz 2000.