Rearview (ekphrasis)

The pope doesn't approve of my green hemp dress
or the way it sags between my shoulder blades.
Even his picture, busy and smiling on the balcony
with the usual entourage of fluttering cardinals
has a weather-worn sheen, tired of its misplaced
place in the fair-skinned air of Saint Malo's,
the dated hair, the fuzzy image safely framed.
I catch the whisper of misplaced stones,
gather my stilted breath from the rafters,
stuck like an axe in rotting wood.
The swallows follow overhead, sullen shadows
in a misplaced v, oddly obedient, free.
Sunset descends. It is too cold here, too small,
too much laminate on wooden Simon and Pieta.

At the mountainous altar of his own church,
he waits outside, these predictable afternoon storms
unknowable, plain, wipes my face with a nubbled
grey sleeve, mannequin to my pandering,
sinner and savior in the gathering rain.