He utters “A reading from the acts of the Apostles.”
We are his people,
the sheep of his flock and
we don’t even fancy sheep.
I wake my mother at the sermon
“We’ll talk at the end of mass,”
we never do.
Putting our hands together for a
for a pointless chant,
I pick off little white hairs from my jacket.
******,
focus.

My mother frowns and pulls the
dress over the run in my stockings
The speakers lisp blurs everything except
Grow up, go to school, go to church.
Go to college, make love.
Wait,
don’t do that.
Make kids, buy a dog,
promise not to cry if it dies.
Or if the dog dies too.

******,
focus.
Bountiful baldlessness as men earning their halo’s
pat the thinning hair beneath them.
Thanks be to God.