After amen

Last words—alleluia, alleluia—echo as we
gather coats, bulletins, purses, hopes,
shut away our prayers again with the names
of the dead in jeweled glass, polished brass,
a clatter of coins in the collection plate.
Full moon wafer of bread, broken with
a snap, like bone, chalice lifted and left,
wavering candles snuffed one by one as
the cross departs with the last pale notes
of another requiem and we turn again—
stumbling—to our brief, our borrowed life.