Obeisance
By Roy Beckemeyer - Wichita, Kansas, USA - 3 December 2016
...will anything serve, short of a genuflection?
Billie Collins
As for genuflection, that pause
when crossing before the tabernacle,
the knees bending, the head bowed,
hands pressed together as if a flower
were flattened there, or a memory
compressed, lips almost touching fingertips
and the warm breath flowing down the fingers,
the right-angularity of ankle joint and knee,
toes gripping through the soles of the shoe, altar
boy's red and white vestments draping from shoulder
to knee to floor and the single shaft of light angling
down from the tall window, crossing pews in
corrugation, diagonal slash across the muted quiet
of the church, the tension of this instant before
the motion reverses, this moment of obeisance perfected.