After Morning Mass

Look!” you cried out,
Voice booming across
The parking lot, spinning me
Round in my tracks.
Cancer wracked,
You raised your right arm
And pointed an index finger
To the white gull perched
Atop the cross at steeple’s top.
The bird took off and we grinned
At each other, arms outstretched
In the mid-winter air as if to embrace
What was and wasn’t there
Before we got into our cars
And went our separate ways,
That fingertip of yours alive with praise.