I Call It Joy

this being unnoticed. Sitting like this
           next to the stone lamb outside the Cathedral.
My lost soul, which prefers the stone lamb
           to the living God. Prefers these deep shadows
to the summer day. The way he took me
           all those years ago, shattered me
so that fifty-seven years later, I might sit
           next to the smoothness of this stone lamb,
know the stone joy of being unnoticed.
           People go in the Cathedral all day long,
visiting their God on their knees. That man
           who betrayed me when I was a boy,
first held me up to a tree so I would know
           what smell lemon blossoms have.

Copyright © 2017 Jim Moore. Used with permission of the author. This poem originally appeared in Kenyon Review, November/December 2017