Each morning, as I sit
in exceptional silence
in my permanent-reserve pew
in the church
of austerity,
a cloud will invariably
darken the windows
as a chipped plate is
soberly handed around.
And each time,
I find myself
giving a little more
than I found myself comfortable
giving before.
From the gloom,
I seem to watch,
as if far removed,
as private rooms within me,
one be one,
are handed over;
I watch as they mingle
like garden pebbles
in the moonlight
with the hard, flinty reticence
of a billion more parishioners
whom I suppose to be sitting
at this very moment
in similar shrines
of their own private making.
And I find it to be
both a curse and a privilege—
a boon and a crime
that I'm
compelled to pay more
than my share of this debt
which seems far too enormous
to legitimately exist.
