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Description
I slip through the big red door
and up the aisle. The wall sconces
are turned on, and the boiler hisses.
The church is empty, so I kneel
in someone's pew, and bow my head
beneath hanging greenery.
There is one day
left, and the children have placed
the figures in the Créche,
all but the babe.

I try to say my prayers, but he comes out
through the sacristy in purple stole
to say his own, and I seize up.

When he sits, I trip up
to the rail like a billy goat,
chewing on my heart
as if it were a tangy and remorseful tin can.
I pull out my laundry list
and read it, verbatim,
hoping God and the priest will divine
the sincerity of my confession.

At the end of it, I brace myself.
He asks if there is any more,
and I wring my heart
but no more rust spurts out.
I tell him, No, and he says restoring
things that I know I will try
to remember when I leave. Oddly,
he never chides me. I get
a penance, a psalm to say, that I do
say and that I feel a little guilty
over. I am spent.

Walking out, I knock over
an arrangement of pink
and white poinsettias, getting dirt
and dirty water everywhere.
No one sees, and I glance
at the childless Créche, set things
as rightly as I can,
wipe my hands on the backs of my jeans,
and keep moving.
I have this feeling
that I will never sin again
and then I go and do that before
I even get to my car.