‘In the sharpened shadows of stained glass’

Jeremiah A. Gilbert is an award-winning photographer and travel writer. His travels have taken him to over a hundred countries and all seven continents, while his photography has been published internationally and exhibited worldwide. He is the author of four travel books, including Can’t Get Here from There: Fifty Tales of Travel, From Tibet to Egypt: Early Travels After a Late Start, and On to Plan C: A Return to Travel.

In the sharpened shadows of stained glass

8-year-old legs swing
from a padded pew
in this chilled room
they call a sanctuary

Bare knees hold
an imprint of berber carpet
Remnants of a one-way conversation
amplify the silence

Tufted beige is spread
throughout the foyer too
a thin welcome
to stylish sinners
headed for the balcony
to watch Mission Spotlight
on a retractable canvas screen

I imagine myself up there
seven minutes in a starring role
a pixelated prophet
surrounded by a different shade of sinners
in a country these cameras crave

My ignorance is like movie makeup
for viewers that don’t want to see
me steal ancient stories
pillage parents from grandparents

My new bronze-skinned neighbors
are new to engineered wood beams
to churches fabricated by foreigners

here to save them
if they kneel with me

Dora Rollins teaches creative writing in an Arizona prison. She serves as an Associate Editor for the 50+-year-old incarceration-focused Rain Shadow Review literary magazine.