'A guest preacher...introduced as Brother Teffeteller, stood up to preach the sermon. He was a short, stocky man with a glass eye. He took off his jacket and threw it to his wife sitting in the front row, then rolled up his shirt sleeves, as if he was looking for a fight. "Look at these here crosses." He gestured to the windows. "We're in the middle of the miracle here, and don't you doubt it."' London Daily Telegraph 8th February 1998 i) prophet There's a face in the light, rolling dawn searing backroad tumbledown, tumbleweed town. Brows knitted, close to twisted, closing eyes below faithless, abused, in plains glare. Pull down the blind: it is only the sun. ii) storyteller Coffee simmers behind him, ageless and revered, the steam rises, urgent in stillness, sunlight catching, flaring. He gazes past the table, smeared, recalling the mornings faded, gone. In the Church, in their restless rows gathered together, they wait, breath and breathless clutched, priceless relics in plastic boxes, their crosses gleam gold, sweat-sticky, in the glass. Clears his throat, stands, whispers amplified and swirling, dust suspended. Begins to speak, to sing his song, sweet melody on the ear, sweeter still the mind's decay, screaming. iii) miracle o lord are these the people who make church every sunday make the nut every payday make work every monday make love every friday who are healed made whole believed betrayed? iv) fingerprints Clear. There - don't you see? A child's mark, the hand placed so... and so, to record a passing through, a statement sworn and taken. Others linger in deep refractions: here a greased mark, there a palm slick with silver, quick-lime burnt pale skin dissolved, bleeding dust. Accusations, suspicion, dirt mounded heated words spark the dry earth, blaze out through the windows conjuring crosses in every pane.