Poem: "St. Roch"

St. Roch

Your ancestors are buried here,

she said,

pointing to the fuzzy monitor;

my roots displayed

as if someone had known all along

that francis killman is my Great Grandfather,

a tattoo of a woman sewn on his thigh

that I have never seen before,

never knew him before,

gets kinda excited

decomposed into a puddle

at St. Roch

his ashes are —

I presume, , ,

but I can never find him,

passing the chapel,

Cubicle “A-2-Z” is absent,

a square window penciled in on the side,

and peering in like Scrooge on Christmas day —

I see there are crutches, braces, wooden canes,

old socks

s t r e w n

on rocks carved, “Thank you to a saint”

LEFT BY KIERKEGAARD’S FAITHFUL

and we are changed —

the peeled off pavement

of Holy Trinity walk

and Saint Irenaeus lane

suffer … drop a penny, sink a ship, sailor blue leaning against the wall, washed out from the lake pontchartrain after the storm

Three Boys at the Pantheon

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