During mass on Sunday mornings
we would recite the Act of Contrition,
a prayer to request forgiveness of sins.
In humble voices, we asked for absolution
from God and from each other,
before the priest blessed the eucharist.
Most of our sins were encouraged in a world on fire,
but we owned up to them every week.
Hatred of our brothers and sisters,
the best drugs and the juiciest hookers,
these were our only escapes
from the bosses, the bills, the tax collectors.

Sin was how we stopped the perpetual slide
into total madness,
and the Act of Contrition,
that was how we kept our sins
from eating us alive.