Do they know it's Thomas Becket after all?

By Erin Clark

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December 29th, the day for making pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas a Becket

They’ve my preferred weak
London pils on tap
here in the Canterbury pub
which bears his name.
Turbulent priest, disrupting airways
since the twelfth century:
he did not put on his own
oxygen mask first
and so – more miracles, please, martyr,
at thy crash-shrine.
It’s that week after the holiday,
when time wibbles, wobbles,
unmoored from month and year.
The great Mass always is undone
by what follows. Brains addle in these
disorganized days. They spill
onto the cathedral floor
awaiting doom’s knock
and choir’s chant, tourists
of a murderous king’s shrug.
No doubt this town,

the seat of British Christendom-
that-was, owes its importance

to this state-sanctioned honor killing.
The days of Christmas
puddle at the ankles
a low salty tide full
of commemorations, barnacles.
Here, pub-goers play board games,
order roasts. An as-yet-unlit woodstove
stands cold against the shy sea breeze
blowing in from Ramsgate.
I keep my wool hat on
and quaff my pint pre-evensong,
wherein, I’m told,

some hidden hands will hammer
at the west doors murderously
when the hour is at hand.
An intentional ghost in aural time
anchoring our present wanderings
the crowds who drift and
largely shop the sales
and, if brave or energetic, bestride
the muddy hills, walking
in all but a pilgrim fashion.

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Erin Clark (she/her) is an American writer & priest living in London. Her work has appeared in publications in the US, UK and Canada, including The Selkie, the Oxonian Review, the New Critique, Free Verse Revolution, The Primer, Over/Exposed, the Crank, Geez, About Place and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook ​Whom Sea Left Behind will be out in 2023 (Alien Buddha Press). You can find her online at emclark.co or on Twitter @e_m_clark.

Erin's other work on Foreshadow:
Found poem: upon arrival at the Abbey (Poetry, July 2023)
​Orchard labyrinth, overgrown (Poetry, August 2023)
and there is that Leviathan (Poetry, November 2023)