Going Home With the One You Came In With

In the pew in front of me, two gray heads, backs bent forward. The woman straightens her jacket over the bulge between shoulder blades, a ruby rosary resting on the seat beside her. At the Peace, they kiss like lovers they once were, but gingerly now, practiced at it. Directly behind me someone sings with a loud, shrill soprano. Challenging the choir, she knows all the words, her confidence unshakable. I wonder did I escape observation, discretely placing my fingers in my ears. At the back of the church, a baby gurgles, then escalates into a wail. The priest leaves the Holy Grail to quiet a loudspeaker gone viral. The baby's allowed. I'm envious of a sheer black dress a young woman wears as if she had been born in it. There's no Confession today. I need one. I'm in lust over two tall dark-haired guys visiting from a nearby high school, their tour bus parked prominently in our lot. Our pastor (not an Indian priest, a priest from India, says he) shares his homily, some syllables washed out, his accent strained through a colander. He's Billy Graham in liturgical dress, so passionate his preach that despite the needy baby, the evidence of tenuous youth, the young studs just out of reach, he makes me believe when my time shall come, I'll go Home With The One I Came In With.