Nathan AM Almeida

[27 August 2019]

We watch in silence as the
bulldozers tear down the rest of the old
church, brick and plywood and old green carpeting
descending from the sky and landing in a heap on the bare
earth. The dust cloud lingers, disseminates,
spreads and works its way onto our skin and into our
bodies, a final meal, a baptism of endings. You stand there,
leaning against the doorframe to the sanctuary, the last
icon of a time when all things old were
new, a portal to something sacred,
arms crossed like a holy knight or a bouncer at
Saint Peter’s gate or a Christ who
never found his way up that old rugged cross.