Crowded by the ceiling’s emptiness (the room sticky with whispers)
names carved into grimy tiles, final shadows
            of the footsteps now hugged in dust,
                        and the ashes dulled the slapping of
                        feet on the ladder’s last rung.

            Huddled in the sour dimness of his shadow
                        is where our parents hid the prayers
                        that went undelivered –
[cloistered, naïve faith off Jacob’s Ladder]

He asked me questions that pricked too deeply –
            that fingernail clipped too short --
            as the invading hand of ******* parted words and stammers
            to play shadow puppets with, what Plato called,
            “three times removed” from the Truth.
And when leaving the choir’s balcony,
one can find the thumbtack of feeling in which
the glass-saints sweat all the industrialized emotions onto one’s brow.
            Does it seem like suffering? Catholic’s suffering.
Giving room for error in your lapse in charity.

In elementary school, we left our classrooms --
            two-by-two like businessmen arguing on the sidewalk --
Every Tuesday at 2:10pm to the hidden alcove that the administration
            gave
            to us.
Mrs. Condon, a strictly fat woman, strictly speaking,
dressed in red vests
and constricting black slacks, with a white binder,
salted as the laughter left in her footprints, reproving us that
as the Gifted and Talented, we must exercise
those gifts and talents.

I wrote a 256-paged novel that bought me one year
of slacking off behind a wooden desk because I was
11 years old
and that fact bought a bulbous beet of conditioning into the
curriculum. Ms. Condon made me edit my peers’ essays, give them grades
when all I wanted to do was play four square.

As I perched on my stool in class, properly equipped with unforgiving,
admonishing, Catholic red pens to point out other
11 year old’s punctuation and proper word usage. Like a tie to a neck, I
fiddled in vernacular, phrases, and semantics
as I unconsciously stacked layers of social prejudice, thicker
than the walls between silent parents, between some students
and I.
Stacked as quaintly as words upon words – hand over hand.

Mrs. Condon, Mrs. CEO, Ms. Too-Good-For-This, Bourgeois vs. Proletariats, I am the Marquis.

Like hounds held by leashes, the others locked to rebel, then whimpered to trail back, tails in hand.

Gifted and groomed to stack one spurned cinder block on social mobility.

In a whirr of dandelions, dice, and tax breaks, I knew how it felt to remain aloft, aloof --
            Mrs. Condon rewarded me with the cherry Twizzler of my spine
            and patted my head like the lapdog that I had been.

Born into a house of red hair
soulless people and
beer

my great grandmother is 101 and four months
and she has contracted Alzheimer’s
which means she sees those who have died before her
like her husband
two of her sisters and
four of her nine children

Her sister died just yesterday at 100 and 17 days sleeping in her bed

I was named after dead relatives

Moira for a cousin who died at 20,
before I was ever even born,
a cousin who sang like a bird
and could have been a mermaid
a beauty with straight white teeth and blonde hair
who found death after struggling with anorexia

Katherine for my great aunt who I never met
but my mother told me of her wearing sunglasses and
her sleek black car and
silky hair always tied back in red ribbons and
how she would sneak cookies to the children
holding her legs in the kitchen

I was born into an Irish house
I was born to people who have slaved their life away to make it

My great grandmother was born in Ireland in 1912
and came to America with her family when she was 10

my great grandfather was a French Canadian born in Quebec
who I was told was gentle and quiet
who smoked when he was happy or sad
and worked on houses and cars and a large family

I was born into the legacy
I was born with their blood in my veins

I was not advised of Jacquelines death,
not until the day after she was cremated,

Mervyn rang me and said it was her
request that Finn should not be told.

So, from Tuesday to Tuesday I was
purposely deleted from their minds.

What is rather amazing is that she was
not buried, I have my suspicions about it.

People should know, Colum Condon had a
trophy funeral, look at what I brought back.

I know for a fact that he made no such
request to be maggot’ed in Mallow.

This was a conspiracy between my mother
and Jacqueline, sure I know, I was well aware.

The story was that he wanted to be buried
with the (Noble) Owens family in St Gobnats.

At that time (his so called desire) had the
futuristic presumption of Jackie joining him.

He was destined to have a state funeral in
Dublin, not a drag hunt down to ******* Cork.

Don’t you find it poetic justice that she ended
cremated in Dublin, (dubiously) at her own wish?

I was told that a photograph of me was issued
to a security firm, lest I turned up at Mt Jerome!

There is more to all of this than is currently known
to the public, but as I was de noble’d I will talk.

When my brother Pat died, the Noble Owens
family insisted that I dress properly for the funeral.

I can recall one of them saying, “We’ve got to do
this right” (It was another show piece for the town)

A suit was procured for me (I never possessed one)
but not only that, I was given a black funeral coat.

What was/is amazing about that, is that it was Pat’s
overcoat and nobody thought to search the pockets.

I found a letter (and perhaps) it was because it was
unopened it was still there, nobody would have kept it.

For years I have been debating what to do with it
but that could change anytime now, Is it a book?

Best first that I circulate this missive and let those
who told me not to contact them again, STEW.