Until

The Pope is dying, clinging to life like any other shmuck. When my mother died, (bless her excommunicated heart), she lay in State as serene as a sleeping cat under a fading sun. Dogs don't care about death, death is just another bone to chew upon as they sleepwalk through their last hours. Death's doorstep has been good to me. I have dwelt upon it before shivering and naked holding my penitent like a tarnished talisman. Death has been kind to me, I have shaken its door, it rattled like an ill-fitting denture. Behind a hollow lock I could hear a dog continuously barking - a Pontiff pleading with it to stop, a silky cat purring. I heard a deeper sound, my mother's compassionate laughter for we who were begot only to wait until.