[hear the author read this piece by clicking this link.]

It was a church then it was a barn with church windows
then it was a photograph of a church-turned-barn.

It was a photograph of the church-turned barn
no longer standing and the standing
of the boy who just woke beside the photo.

It was a day then it was a church.
A boy wakes and feeds his golden fish.

It was a barn then it was a boy imagining barns.

I was standing in the barn which was a church
which was myself within a golden fish.

I woke then fed the boy.

It was a photograph of ghost towns then it was the ghost of the
fish in the sand of waking.

We played “ghost fish” by empty ponds.

It was a church then it was the ghost of the heat of the church.

A barn is warmer than I am.
The fish are the temperature of a church.

It was a boy with boy windows then it was a year with church-windows.

The whole building fell and had to swim its beams like ghosts.
It was a church then it was the fear of not having a church,
so it was the building of the church, the feeding of the fish.

No it was a barn.