The Tuesday Poem: Refeaturing “Cathedral of the Poor” by Frankie McMillan

Cathedral of the Poor

Gaudi watches his father tend bees,
draws the shape of hives,
the pillars of Sagrada Familia

smoke pours
from a wooden box, his father rises

around his neck are baubles
seeds from the magnolia tree

Is there any better structure
than the trunk
of a human skeleton ?

But look
here is the four armed cross
the breath of the glassblower,
the ceramicist, ironmonger

Here is work, long as the prayers
of a Bavarian priest

Here are the trees that grow in the nave
the helicoid colu...