A Holy Guest
June Lee
At the bedrock bottom of your staircase,
I was baptized into your religion, an unforeseen guest of sixteen
sheepishly entering the shrine of non-silence: where shoes are allowed inside.
Was at least a shred of dignity
spared by the rubbing of soles against the doormat?
And it began –– the frailty,
followed by the shepherd I befriended at the foyer,
the German kind, followed by the prick of the foot by the splintered wooden floor,
followed by a tale of their famed fifth cousin recounted by the football fanatic brother,
an affront to the father, a foe of the Patriots.
Past midnight I was wound down by the weighted blanket,
dreambound blessed, four elbows exposed
and pressed against three pillows,
parting upper lips only to whisper
two repressed wishes into the silence:
first to let be known that I was merely an apparition,
bound to be made agnostic once again upon exit.