Sun Hat GENEVIEVE HAMILTON
It’s miles from you to the pulpit. Organ pipes sit stiff and somber in brass uniforms suspended in silence, their dusty throats beg for a chorus of song. Stained wooden pews: teeth marks— taste varnish, boredom, stack prayers to the rafters and stuff in the plush pink cushion a paper airplane—a tic-tac-toe battle scrawled across its broken bulletin wing. That tear in the thick carpet— slip a finger to the stone-cold layer, left to sit a century. Battered broken backs of Bibles, of hymnals, two-by-two take rest in rows on rows of pews that break the backs of the congregation and bring to life the sinner asleep. Stare at the stained-glass brilliance stretching floor to ceiling. Palm the window— pretend a pulse beats beneath the sun-baked swaths of shimmering color— the sun hat beside you jingles her keys.