Laura Reece Hogan
A Small Good Friday Service at Notre Dame Cathedral
Paris, 2020
The blackened wound still festers, open to the Parisian sky,
barbs of melted steel beams left to untangle, all progress
stopped by pandemic. The irreplaceable roof and spire
lost; yet priceless treasure survived—the crown
of thorns, long-suffering. The nave billows toxic lead
from the incinerated roof. The structure teeters
on failure, construction helmets required.
Priests process in masks, liturgical actors read in plastic
suits, rubber boots, cameramen capture the scene
in hazard gear. Only a few of us can be there, a few
of us playing all of us, all of us who wear hard hats
in adoration of a crown of thorns.