Evensong: Wet – a poem by Gabriella Brand

Evensong: Wet


I slip into the church to get out of the storm,
my coat clinging damp to my back.
I have a train to catch in a few hours and nowhere to go, 
except a bar or a bistro
and I can’t face the noise.

It’s Evensong, the pews almost empty, two old ladies in the front,
a mother and her babbling toddler behind me, 
a man with a cane on the other side. 
A sign asking me to turn off my phone.

Voices process down the aisle, rising and falling, a young priest.
The old ladies bow their heads, so I bow mine, but not before
catching sight of a little choir boy with an untied shoe. 
I smile at him and he smiles back as if we share a secret.

Canticles, psalms, the old prayers.
Things that don’t change give me peace.
A blessing descends on my head.
I watch the candles flicker in the draft.
My shoulders relax. The rain stops. 

Gabriella Brand‘s work has appeared in Comstock Review, Echoes, Citron Review, Room Magazine (Canada) and Shiuli (India). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee in both fiction and poetry. An active outdoorsperson, Gabriella teaches in the OLLI program at the University of Connecticut. Her website is gabriellabrand.net