The Solubility of Sunday

The plaster overhead is map-veined and old,

a history of leaks the sexton never told.

I’m sitting through the vows and the hymns,

watching how the light on the altar dims.

Two rows down, a woman flips a lid

and drops a cube of sugar, nearly hid

inside her tea. I watch the white square

soften and fray in the steam-heavy air.

It goes without a sound, a quiet collapse,

filling the spaces between the water’s gaps.

When the service is done and the pews are bare,

the grit at the bottom is all that’s still there.