Flumes Vol. 3: Issue 1 Summer 2018 | Page 94

Church Service

By Edward Ahern

In between singing and praying

and chanting and preaching

is silence.

And in that stillness we overhear

the rustling of demons uncomfortable

in hypocrisy.

Under the fancy-dressed pieties

are the soiled linens of

our weaknesses

that we fear or relish repeating,

that infiltrate our thoughts even

while praying.

The evils of our being writhe

unearthed on the bare soil of

our devotion.

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