The boy comes to the back door of the parish,
bearing he says, “A gift.”
A crib, its mattress, and a baby bearish
quilt. “I hear you people stand for life.”
What came between them, what could cleave a rift
and birth such sorrow?
Girlfriend or wife,
she gave her child no chance for a tomorrow
but left a young man sobbing in despair
on the chipped flagstones of my pastor’s stair
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