Philip Wilson
Museum Of Atheism, Leningrad, July 2006
She finishes at six. This is the day
in uniform away from dialectics:
except in the head. She tells a tall man
where the catalogue’s kept, tells a kid off
for vaulting a peeling prie-dieu. Summer
makes the nave molten, incenses air.
In black and white she’s an unveiled sister,
a photo of earlier times. She walks
between display cases, stands like a Pope
on her balcony, gives the tiniest wave
to a cast of a Christian column. How did
they do it? How manage something so big?
She finishes at six. She checks herself
in an icon mirror, shifts a snail curl
that fizzes like salt when shifted behind
her ear. She may hit the new beach. Lara
can test her on Marx for Monday’s questions.
She gets catechised on Saint Basil.
Her favourite’s a crucifix from Poland.
An ivory diver. Elephant’s tusk
carved to the sweep of a brutalised man.
Nailed to a criss-cross wood. Sometimes, after six,
she releases it with her special key,
strokes His wounds. This is strictly forbidden.
Page(s) 55
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