The Merciful Beneficence of Repression

Let’s just say the incense fell out of his censer
a long time ago. Let’s just say his holy water boat sunk.

Let’s just say his rosary beads bounced wildly along his psyche
and dribbled onto the sanctuary floor. No one wanted to serve

mass with Monsignor Hartman. He would grab your arm in an iron grip
and grimace — as close as he got to love. But here I was, alone, serving

a requiem mass for a poor young woman who died of a church and state
enforced coat hanger abortion. Her relations wailed and keened—

one of them crawled on her knees up the center aisle of St. Mary’s
where Monsignor Hartman and I stood before the small casket.

Because the other two altar boys had fagged out, I had to balance
the censer and holy water boat, the charcoal and incense while

Monsignor, in his black cape and mood, stared at me maliciously
until I offered him the holy water boat. He took the aspergillum

and stepped down to anoint the coffin with the church’s holy tears.
Instead he dropped the aspergillum and grabbed his throat, 

his pallor as pale as back-alley putty, blessed terra of terror. “Holy
shit!” I intoned. Was the old blowhard having a heart attack?

The grieving multitude gasped. What possessed me to look at my feet
I don’t recall. Head bowed, I discovered my right shoe planted atop

Monsignor’s cape causing the gold clasp at his throat to smite his Adam’s
apple like Cain crushed Abel. “Holy shit!” I chanted again and lifted my foot.

The Monsignor winged toward the casket like an ecclesiastical trapeze flyer.
I remember nothing after that except the image of Monsignor Hartman draped

over the coffin, clutching it like a vulture in a Caravaggio nightmare—
my first experience of the merciful beneficence of repression.