They say the saints were gilded in light,

but she moves through her kitchen

in a cotton nightgown,

bare feet whispering against tile.

Her halo is the soft spill of morning,

sunlight that forgives the dust

and calls it gold.

She anoints the counter with coffee grounds

and wipes the table clean like an altar.

The ritual is never spoken,

but each gesture knows its place:

the pouring, the stirring, the soft clink of a spoon.

In her silence, there is liturgy.

The world has not named her holy,

but the cat bows when she passes,

and the kettle hums its hymn.

She breaks bread into halves

for no one in particular,

and even that feels sacred,

the surrender of what is whole

made enough for sharing.

She finds her psalms in small mercies:

a neighbor’s wave,

the orange still warm from the sun,

the mercy of clean sheets.

Grace does not thunder for her.

It gathers like dust on the windowsill,

ordinary, overlooked,

yet waiting to catch the light.

At the market, she blesses no one by name,

yet every exchange feels like benediction.

The butcher wraps the meat,

and she thanks him as if it were salvation.

She steadies the old man’s basket

without thinking why,

perhaps some part of her still believes

in miracles disguised as habit.

By evening, the air leans close,

gold slipping toward blue.

She sits at the window,

hands folded but not in prayer,

only resting in what remains.

The candle wavers,

its flame thinning like a whispered amen.

If anyone asked,

she would not claim devotion.

Somewhere, an angel takes note

of the way she closes her eyes before sleep,

how she forgives the day as it leaves her.

She will never be canonized,

but heaven keeps its own records,

and surely it remembers the quiet ones,

the ones who believed

that love could live

in the smallest things.