A RAISED VOICE

Let it be Sunday and the alp-high
summer gale gusting to fifty miles.

Windmills groan in disbelief, the giant
in the pulpit enjoys his own credible

scale, stands twelve feet 'clothed in fine linen'
visibly white from the waist up, all

inferior parts masked, as my father
ascends three steps, is cupped like an egg.

The pulpit floor's eye-level, I look
up, Gordon Brown looks up, my father

looks down at his notes and begins in the
name of the father and of the son

and of the holy ghost amen, a voice
that says Jess to my mother, heightened

three steps, to which add the sanctuary
...