I’m back in NYC
and I see
this cathedral
a graveyard
and a bench

We went to a cathedral once. 

I sit on the bench,
face my brown leather bag toward the graveyard
and admire the cathedral.
I’m not religious,
nor spiritual,
but you can call me universal.
My thought process is this:
the universe will provide,
the universe will create,
the universe knows what’s best,
but I have to take that first step.
I have to provide.
I must create.
I will shape my future.

I went to Italy this summer and saw too many cathedrals to count. 
A Catholic-majority country may have
Catholic-dominant values,
and boy, do they love stained glass!
All of the cathedrals had one thing in common:
a place to rest.

Give me your tired,
your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
or rather, 
give me a place to sit for twenty minutes 
and I’ll be forever grateful.

I’m not religious,
nor am I spiritual,
but I am your merry, foreign traveler,
brought back to the homeland by 
fig cookies and Sicilian prayers.

I’m back in NYC
and I’m sitting on a bench
in a graveyard
next to this cathedral in FiDi.
The Financial District.
I’m not sure of the difference between 
a church and a cathedral:
Is it age,
or is it appreciation from the non-religious masses?

Tourists trek to tasteful cathedrals, not churches.

This churthedral is built of brick, stone, and time,
the gravestones so worn their names illegible.

We went to a graveyard once.
You let me rant about the founding fathers
and their populist views
and their adultery
and if I could fly like a bird back in time to that moment,
I’d see myself inanely gesturing 
while you smiled quietly at my passion.
I would flap my wings to the beat of your frantic heart.

John, James, Henry, George, 
William, Alexander, and Thomas.
The most common names in this graveyard.
British by origin,
American by revolution.
There’s a British girl on my floor,
and we bumped into each other one day by the communal bathrooms,
and we got to talking about history,
and I mentioned that 
the Revolutionary War was a significant part
of my elementary education.
I pledge allegiance
to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the republic 
for which it stands
one nation
under the universe
indivisible
with liberty and justice for all.
She nodded her head,
then remarked that Britain’s loss was only
a paragraph or two in her textbooks.

The Tea Party?

She shook her head.

July 4th?

She shook her head again.

Yorktown?

Nope.

Bunker Hill, George Washington crossing the Delaware, the French allying, the Constitution,-

Yes! How does it go… four score and seven-

Shocked.

History is written by the winners, the losers fade and forget.
Britain fought a hundred countries like us,
young scrappy and hungry 
on Broadway for two hundred bucks,
they’re the failed Roman Empire,
the royalty rotted.

We took ethnic studies together
sophomore year.
Masks messed with human interaction.
I tripped over your backpack once.

Madame Catherine Gentil rests
at the entrance to the FiDi graveyard,
under a stone monument 
engraved with doting words.
Tout en français.
Here erected
My Sweet Catherine,
in the memory 
of your dignified and virtuous father
with sweet regrets.
Gentil: nice, kind, sweet.

Call me Emilia Sweet 
when you lay me down to rest,
throw rose petals on my tomb
and orange TicTacs at my feet,
and in the memory of my shy and forgiving lover,
bury me in NYC.