Trying to Be Penitent

on the leather pews,
the wood was coming through,
so I thought only of my knees,
not his heroic finish
hammered to his handiwork,
not of the gory suds
that according to the sermoner
rivered from
his sacred liver

and ran downhill
into the mob that
was there to see God die
and on the under-card
the two common thieves
he hung between,
his arms extended like a politician
or emcee —

just two village punks
like the guys I grew up with,
Crazy Harry
who set houses on fire,
Barbone, who unsnugged
lug nuts and watched the cars
fall off their tires,
or the Jimmy Love that I
hung on the Poe School fence
for swiping my glove.
Glum and unrepentant,
even after he gave in
I kept beating him.

The censors snuffed,
I heard the Ite, missa est
and along with the rest
of the thoughtless and quick-heeled
rushed to the doors, sun-framed,
thanking the empty sky
that I would not that day
be with Him in Paradise.

J. T. Barbarese
The Black Beach
Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry
Andrew Hudgins, Judge
University of North Texas Press

© 2005 by J. T. Barbarese.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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