Half past two Wednesdays Catholic
”a fair number”would rise up
in silence when their specialbuzzer jolted our Queens
classroom, summons a good
hour before our scheduledparole to their midweek Saint
Teresa’s spiritual sparkle, a canny
swap of Byrd’s tale of his schlepover the Antarctic or Vasco de Gama’s
spice routes for Jesus matinees.
As if aged or made wiser by this in-cantation, they moved off with short
grainy strokes, an etiquette faith
associates with a seasoned squadof pallbearers primed to meet
the threat of church front steep
slippery stairs, death’s danceswift bitsy two-step sole
shuffle spilling soft sand-
paper sounds on gathered grieversbelow, cargo remaining aloft,
upright. “Early dismissal
for religious instruction,”they call it. I envied them
their discharge before our
time and think of them nowin the wake of abrupt dismissal,
return tomorrow a fool’s
gold dream, of my daughter, 24.
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