I am not ashes nor burning fowl,
not soot, not untouched snow
but a burnished green gem
setting its self alight.
here we become so silken
even our names pool at our feet
a lantern that does not know itself
shining all the more brighter for the dark
the margins of the idol slope and
slough away, rubbed at by nothing,
to stop holding what isn’t there
bare and divine and you:
a church too holy for walls.