Embedded Files
Joseph Teti is a first-year MA/PhD candidate in CUA's English department. His poetry has been published here at Vermilion (vol. 7), as well as The Borough, Clayjar Review, Rialto Books Review, Silver Door [Substack], Foreshadow, As Surely as the Sun, and others.
Outside church, where the liturgy begins,
the T-shape of a street lamp highlighted
a phone-pole, wood and splinter, up the hill
where Hyattsville spread out beneath us, like
a million stars reflecting in the void
waters, which were the blank and cloudy sky.
A spring night breeze swirled through us, smell of muck,
presentiment of warmth and growth in dirt.
We were the swirl of coats, still colorless
in twilight, looking where the streetlamp shone,
cold, but excited, waiting for the sign
from Fr. Scott that we could go inside.
For now, he presses thorns on our behalf
into the beeswax pillar, saying,
“Christ
yesterday and today; beginning, end,
alpha, omega—all time longs for Him;
to Him be glory, now, and ever, amen.”
Then we went in, in silence and in dark,
and from my view, up in the choir loft,
I watched the candles spread from that first flame.
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