Brittney Corrigan, "Sunday Morning"

He looks around, around, and he sees
angels in the architecture, spinning
in infinity, and he says 'amen' and 'hallelujah'.
-Paul Simon

I wait always for the bells
from the church behind my house.
They forgive
the neighbors' yelling, the vacant house
next door. Nine-thirty, they sound
31 times. I'm still asking
about the number, eliminating beads
on the rosary, age when crucified. Maybe
a verse, a psalm, the Trinity plus one.
Even the almost-priest doesn't know.
This Sunday,
after the bells, twin spires silent, two carved
angels resting in stone - I hear singing.
Faint - a small joy warming. I lean out
my window to find it, see a man smiling up
at me, waving. Waving back I pull my head in,
move to find my husband, and the singing stops.
The man vanishes. His song fades into children
on the street. I am thinking of how
my cat will die tomorrow - she's old, wasted
down to bone. Of how the bells return
every weekend. Of how the man
is like a ghost, taken back to the low-income
apartments, the market rushing trash into
the street greens. One yellow tomcat
in my yard watched by two angels.
At any moment
any of them could open into song.