In an open field, invented by the cathedral to set off its

heavy frame, dead-man’s oatmeal

spreads from the graveyard in a cream bloom,

and whenever the cathedral sighs out

all its history and stamps its stone feet, hungry

for the fullness of another great moment,

the porridge shivers and froths, as if on the boil, and scalds

the cathedral’s toes, white hot, too hot to eat,

and the cathedral becomes leaner and sharper, as spring’s sunsets

fatten, until it is just a silhouette of itself on the skyline.