Franklin Street ~

Franklin Street was
our cool cathedral to play in
vaulted high in green
with shards of light
breaking through leafy windows
to fall on mosaics 

of brownish-yellow bricks

along shaded sidewalks
flanked with patches of green,

behind which one house stood 

that could have been a chapel 

with three steps leading up

to a porch

where flowers threw off scents
like plumes of incense
giving access to a narrow nave
at whose distant end
a lone stained-glass window
glowed reddish orange,
as if for Vespers  or Mass. 

We played differently there

under that arching canopy
celebrating our rituals
with quiet fervor in restrained games,

in a sanctuary more suited for prayer,
between eight mighty pillars
flanking the nave, evenly spaced,
bearing the weight of the arches—
or were they oaks?