Spectrum by Robbie Gamble

I sang in the choir, robed and surpliced until my voice broke, and God lent me to wander.

Spectrum

by Robbie Gamble

A broad stained-glass rose window
perforated the south apse. When clouds

outside dispersed I could count the shafts
of emerald, ruby, Atlantic blue

those Sunday mornings
when the sermon bored me.

My heart neither lifted nor hardened
by dry Episcopalian wafers.

I sang in the choir, robed and surpliced
until my voice broke, and God

lent me to wander. On a Tokyo civic map,
one block of kanji is rendered:

Shelter for Persons Who Cannot Go Home.
A grace gets refracted in translation.

Keep reading Robbie Gamble’s early and middle drafts of “Spectrum,” as well as the full process statement, in Copytext Magazine.

“Spectrum” was originally published in Psaltery & Lyre in May 2025, where it was nominated for Best Spiritual Literature.