William Carlos Williams
58
THE SEMBLABLES
That red brick monastery in
the suburbs over against the dust–
hung acreage of the unfinished
and all but subterranean
munitions plant: those high
brick walls behind which at Easter
the little orphans and bastards
in white gowns sing their Latin
responses to the hoary ritual
while frankincense and myrrh
round out the dark chapel making
an enclosed sphere of it
of which they are the worm:
that cell outside the city beside
the polluted stream and dump
heap, uncomplaining, and the field
of upended stones with a photo
under glass fastened here and there
to one of them near the deeply
carved name to distinguish it:
that trinity of slate gables
the unembellished windows piling
up, the chapel with its round
window between the dormitories
peaked by the bronze belfry
peaked in turn by the cross,
verdegris
faces all silent
that miracle that has burst sexless
