maundy thursday

Brooke Stanish

stained yellow
glass high as rafters,
bronze chandeliers:

small suns held up
with chains. i am
trying to listen

again, resist this
human inclination
toward listlessness

meaning, i do not
want to fall asleep
here in this chapel

where i am trying
to listen. maybe i
am simply tired, &

this has nothing
at all to do with the
state of my soul,

i don’t know if i
even have one
anymore, beneath

my fingertips into
my ribcage pressed,
a softness. i do not

know what to do
with all this belief;
it will not fit

into place anymore. &
this chapel is dim–
frozen in day, as if

the sun forgot
it entirely

Brooke Stanish is an MFA candidate in the Creative Writing Program at Louisiana State University. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Weber–The Contemporary West, either/or, America, The Windhover, Inscape, and other publications. She also received the 2025 David Madden MFA Award for Fiction.