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Catholic

Stern but saintly Father Meissen 
scolded the parents for not having 
their baby boy baptized sooner. 
It was April, 1952,
inside the stained-glassed catholic church,
ensconced on sun-split Newlin street, 
avenue of pink oleanders and cracking sidewalks.
According to the chagrined mother, 
she was told that delaying this pivotal sacrament
for three complacent months, 
after the boy’s birth on January 11, 
was unequivocally unacceptable, 
and that waiting so eternally and unendingly, 
actually jeopardized her befuddled baby’s soul. 
For if he had died, say in March of 1952, 
unbaptized,
then his eternal soul, because of original sin,
would have been mercilessly subject
to the inscrutable tortures of hell, 
and the lake of fire.
As per destiny, this glued-on scenario 
was not realized, and instead, 
the boy received the abundant graces
of a head-turning God that day,
as the boy’s shiny oblivious head 
was gently and sanctimoniously doused 
with priestly-blessed holy water, fresh
from the rippling baptismal fount,
anchored dogmatically with rusted rebar,
deep below the shadowy sacristy,
among the obstinate urns
and the dark-voiced Dominus vobiscums.

But now we hear his older, wiser voice,
undulating like a lark’s-heel after the begging,
hiding the treason of a reprobate mind,
fondling the prayers of ten thousand children,
crying silent astonished tears 
into the cold marble baptismal fount;
A groping wet madness firmly set 
among the kneeling statues, and the holy linens, 
encrusted with fool’s gold and trusting threads.
What kept these stilled voices unheard for so long?
Why did they not speak before this somber time?
Why did they bend, roll over and 
close their eyes so cooperatively?
So reverently?
No one can possibly speak 
about the unspeakable, for
Father’s holy, righteous indulgences
were unequivocally unacceptable.
But it is too late now.
Mine eyes can clearly see now
the crying sunken skull at Golgotha,
turning its furious eyes away.
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