Alternatives to the temple cliché

Becca Grischow

Maybe my body is a sandcastle

tucked above the lip of the tide

built with lopsided turrets

and an uneven seashell drawbridge

crooked, careful details

crafted just because.

 

Maybe it’s a cobwebbed windmill

that slowed to a standstill ages ago

with ivy reaching to cover the places

where the wood is rotting away.

 

Maybe it’s a butterfly house

that’s only closed for the season

or a paper mache monument to itself

or a gutted car that somehow is still running

 

or a condemned church

built from ash and apple cores

whose floor is fogged over with unholy handprints

stained glass shattered at the doorstep

where I keep crawling back to worship.