No takers and so I sneaked in alone
through the side door, fifteen,
vested in miniskirt and heels,
my weight on my toes down the hardwood
hallway thick with cigarette smoke
and slick with spilled drinks. Panes of stained
glass fuschia-lit by track lights,
and, in what the nuns called the narthex,
bartenders answered every request:
pisco sour, tequila, double rum
and cokes. I sipped water and scanned
the room of bodies being touched
or asking to be.
I slipped past them, hot in the heat of it,
and entered the nave where overhead
stage lights of stars showered
blue-white across the dancers.
So what, I thought, an old church converted
to a night club? So what, when dancing like this,
the best arched back and wrapped around
her partner, and everyone with loose wrists,
loose grips, taut center, loose hips.
A man my father’s age touched
the small of my back and offered me a drink.
The best soda in town, he said, leaning close,
his breath masked with grenadine.
I sat on the kneeling rail, stared up
at an icon of Christ,
one eye pained and drooping,
the other a music of rain on a rock beach
and horses running downhill.
Though the air felt dense and windless,
I could hear the vaulted ceilings calling,
and though it seemed nothing
but beams and plaster, how strange
to feel both beautiful and profane.
I looked again at Christ’s eyes
watching me
and what was I to do?
I rose and followed,
my body a horse mane, a stone singing.
–
Joy Moore lives in Tennessee, where she teaches undergraduate writing and interdisciplinary courses, manages two coffee shops, and leads a music and arts venue. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such journals as Hunger Mountain, The Greensboro Review, and Prairie Schooner, where she won a Glenna Luschei award.