Published May 15th, 2025
Canada Poetry Contest #3 – First Place
by Nicole Moen
A facade can tell you
something
or nothing about its interior.
This mellow limestone cathedral –
twenty-one cream and pink strata
lift a peaked roof, buttress-wings
provide stays. Step your eyes up the stripes –
a double rose window,
fifteen jet petioles midst thirty petals
blossom. Basilica di Santa Chiara's arch-doorway –
three times taller than a human,
but smaller than God. Entrants step over the sill,
veer left or right. I journey straight
into the crypt. What is it about dead Saints
that makes me cry? After my ancestors walked
el Camino de Santiago, maybe they visited
her too. I think I feel them. I think I feel her?
Will the grace given me today wash away
the gracelessness of ancestors?
It is Claire's painted face on her life-size effigy
that houses her bones like a soul facade –
that nails my heart, brings tears.
I step back
from the stream of people into an arched niche,
glimpse flashes of her luminance
between passersby, as if I were the one
in motion. My fiancé holds me
in the alcove of his body, in the way
I like best. I keen soundlessly
as my body sweetens.
About the Artist
Nicole Moen resides in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Read the poet's biography on Nicole Moen's Artist Page.
This poem is also featured in Wax Poetry and Art Magazine #7,
published in the Wax Poetry and Art Library.
Previously published in Canada Poetry Magazine:
Three Seasons, Three Paintings
Visual Art by Anna Nike Leskowsky
Canada Poetry Magazine is part of the Wax Poetry and Art Network.
- Visit the main Wax Poetry and Art Submissions Page to see all opportunities.
- Visit the Wax Poetry and Art Library.
- This website and all contents ©Kirk Ramdath and specified artists.
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