1 Saint Michael 39;s Road

[Irati Klute]

Itake the bus north along a road lined with nail bars, Middle Eastern restaurants and grocery stores, stacked outside with an improbable number of oranges. Why could anyone possibly want so many oranges?

The church is on a residential street beyond a long strip of grass, a corridor of velvet green. It is quiet except for the sound of children playing outside the primary school. Occasionally a jogger or a parent pushing a pram rounds the corner and I worry about how I look, with my camera and notebook.

Still, they have already fixed the leaks troubling the right and left sides of the nave. Inside, I marvel at the eastern window: Christ inside the gates of the city of Heaven, surrounded by the saints, before a purple sky studded with stars. A few women, white linen draped over their heads, quietly mouth words to themselves: praying. The sound of a rattle from a baby. One of them whispers to me to take off my shoes.

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