JUST IN CASE

 

there is purity like a choirboy

in white robes of innocence holding the crucifix and bending a knee

blessed with the goodness that

only God can offer;

purity like snow falling in a blanket

unmolested untouched

invokes psalm and Bach melodies

healing the hardness; hard

cars in candy colors that crash, dark

haunted streets that rape,

winter trees undressed that kill

 

a world blessed white with hope

like a pulpit sermon where

angels light upon your pain

in some catechism of comfort

you can take home with you;

saints you can pray to

a confessional for sinners

 

wasn’t it God who touched

him in what had come to

be known as “down there”

at seven years old it was

a place pristine and unnamed,

unmarked by machismo

unnamed by mothers who were embarrassed

and unclaimed by girls with smiles that knew;

he was a fatherless boy

with a mother weary and pressed

who went to church to pray away poverty

and dressed her children to

parade like ducklings

in front of unrepentant priests

hawks of a holy order ready

to swoop and trouble her flock

 

Mary’s hands flew to her ears when Brian

told her that the man with

the beautiful Irish lilt had

fouled his seven years, God’s appointed

Father McHenry who gave peppermints

to the children and brought

her flowers in the hospital,

lilies her favorite

could not possibly do what

she could not even speak

the words that sullied her son’s lips

when he said  “he touched me

down there”

 

Mary watched the sun slant across

the falling snow, a blizzard out her

Saturday window, no school

on Monday and church

would be cancelled,

her five children sat like

stairsteps in front of

the TV bursting to play

in the snow; she didn’t

have to iron her dress

for tomorrow, but Sunday now

came with a stain…

she’d iron her dress anyway

just in case