James Bertolino
My
Cathedral
Were I a woman
I'd have a thing
to do: an architect I'd be
on God's business.
The high somber space
inside my cathedral
would be built of the silence
that comes only when a dying child
has finished her last
scream.
Copyright 1996, James Bertolino
James Bertolino lives on Guemes Island and teaches literature and prose writing at
Western Washington University. His most recent book is Snail River
(Quarterly Review of Literature Poetry Series, Princeton, 1995).