Confession over, penance said - my eyes
yet longed for surer punishment: for lust
they might well be plucked out - but the gentle
Spirit informed me: "Now as you walk home,
“look only at a cross." Quickly, my eyes
fashioned one from a railing - it yielded
to a cross among lampposts, this sliding
to the cross in the pattern on a wall:
the frantic imagination picking
crosses from each new passing frame of sight -
finding immeasurable relief in
the real cross atop a church spire.
Yet, it had been disclosed: hidden among
its structures, crosses make a city stand.
