Great Cathedrals 
    Before a date, my college roommate
    Used to drive his candy-apple red Camaro
    Down to the car wash and spend the afternoon
    Washing, waxing, vacuuming it,
    Detailing the chrome strips, buffing the fenders,
    Spraying the big expensive tires
    With their raised white lettering

    That said something like Intruder
    Or Marauder, with a silicone spray
    Until they were slick and dark as sex.
    He polished that car as if each caress,
    Each pass of the chamois, each loving
    Stroke of the terry cloth would increase,

    By measurable degrees,
    The likelihood that in the immaculate
    Front seat, with its film of freshly applied
    Vinyl cleaner, at the end of a cul-de-sac
    Somewhere above the campus,
    She would consent to be rubbed
    And buffed just as lovingly.

    We do what we can,
    And if God is no more impressed
    By the cathedral at Chartres
    Than by a righteously clean and cherry
    Camaro, at least He can't say
    We haven't tried

    With all our might to conceal our fear
    That we have little else to offer
    Than stained glass or polished chrome,
    The elbow grease of our good intentions.

    So I'm happy to see
    That in the Christmas card photo he sent
    Mark stands, balding now,
    With a dignified gut, a pretty wife,
    And a couple of nice-looking kids, in front
    Of the great cathedral
    Like the sweet vision of a future
    He'd been vouchsafed one day
    Long ago, through Turtle Wax
    On a gleaming hubcap.

                          George Bilgere