Pro cathedral

A little thistly, prickly, & wet the grounds of the poor,
  chancel past doors, child inside
Thurifer I was is still rather sacred-like to me,
  the prints my sandals leave invisible
as ever

Or st. francis dropt down from the many, thumbs
  in tassel, visible through beard,
 saying "brrrr brrrrr heaven's reclaimable,
  in 50 years,  rascally hearts!"—
Still in tassels

A chancel where beads in a drawer, cards, fake twines
  seep into me still
(if you're attuned enough!), stacks of offertory hymns
  that've turned to bone, & a
mission box—

these I can see, outside, since the Pro still tries to sigh,
  sadly, unmistakably to me
and as it does it's not the clutch it was once, written
  in bronze now, on a plaque
(pulpit-like as hell):

saying it's all gothic bastarda, pew wood, & intentions
  Shaly breath;
and from lawns over there a chintzy crèche (the sheep
  still licking his feet!) of the convents—
the veiny calves

And I haven't found anything, as I walk the summer asphalt,
  no talking sparrow, not a mist
to make me soul-good 'cause the middle-aged don't see
  ghosts
Under a golden umbrella

sneaky tourists like me, in too much traceless grass, look
   Stoles & mitts gone, too
absent now as the dripping spear, and no laburnum
  either, or potted irises
to tidy virgins

In sum: a plaster moulding hangs bent ( christ, knew it well!)
  over shiny brows
and cross-beam,  the granitic frown that's still inside
  this fake child,
Virgin-tidy