She moves through bare hallowed halls,
hands hidden within pockets of wool,
a rosary swinging from her waist;

her heels click stone floors, quick as the crack of a whip.

A white stallion woven in silken threads
Nostrils flaring, tongue raging
Plunges, unable to wrest himself

From a fence sequestering his freedom.

“Christ claims silence in the hunt for ritual,”
she murmurs, then prostrates herself
before an aged cross.

“Benedictus, Benedictus, Benedictus.”

Outside wind forces colored leaves to the brink,
the draft sets stained-glass rattling.
Bound by robes, stiff and course against her flesh,

she remembers

spring and summer when there were
hyssop
basil and
wild thyme

and she smells

quince, grown ripe on dainty trees in the garden.