Chance has its Favourites

Hey then,
what should a young priest do:
first church,
first congregation,
almost -- but not quite --
his first communion with them,
entering the chancel by the vestry door
between the altar and the choir stalls,
heaven, if you will,
and hell,
eyes flicking left to clock
the crowded pews before
he turns to genuflect
and sees (or rather, doesn't see)
the chalice of pure gold, sees in its place
a shining, spinning roulette wheel?

What should a young priest think?
A prank? A hoax?
The choir boys?
Surely not the altar boy? And then he notes:
the absence of a ball; the rate of spin
is constant, the wheel's
not slowing down; and where the wafers
of unleavened bread should be,
a pile of gambling chips...

What should a young priest think?
There is no precedent to answer that.
But this one thought:-
of Marcel Duchamp
moving a urinal
into a gallery, converting it by that
into a work of art... might this unholy thing
by method not dissimilar, become
a found and holy joy?

But then he thought -- we'll blame the spin --
his mother's dressing table,
and her music box:
and incongruity upon more incongruity,
the handle of the spinning wheel became
the ballerina there...
no, not the ballerina on his mother's box,
a dancer, male, wild and wanton, spinning yes,
but leaping too, and hanging in the air.
More sexual even, than a ballerina,
his dance was breaking all the rules,
all conventions,
prohibitions, inhibitions. Out of the church,
into the night he spun and jumped.
A moment later, back he came,
a long leap from the transept,
landing light as air, a mere squeak
from his dance shoes on the floor.

What should a young priest do
about to celebrate communion?
He wanted most of all to join the dance.
Called to the barr,
he saw the two of them in pas de deux.
Two male dancers in a pas de deux!
When did you last see one of those?

Well, finally, the last remaining strands
of reservation broke, and he -- quite unbeknown
to him -- was on his points... Fading now,
the roulette wheel, the chancel arch,
the altar, choir stalls, choir boys:
all a blurr... and he had spun his way
along the nave and through the great east door
out into the night, into the cold and dark
among the grave stones and upon the pure
white frost... and no, my friends,
sad to relate, he is not spoken of
these days in those same tones
of reverence as is his hero, Marcel Duchamp.

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The image is from Wikimedia Commons here