my earliest memory—walking down the
linoleum aisle at St. Mary’s chapel

mother on one side, father on the other
their dewy-eyed toddler in between 

a worn, blistered palm in each hand
i clung to them like sickly tobacco on the lips

of some rancorous addict, persistent and biting;
viscid smog that weaves through the breath of heretics 

at the podium of empty grace
the wealthy priest stood with his weighted leather bible

desirous of nothing, scrupulous yet unseeing,
opaque spectacles buried in prayer after praise.

there, we knelt at the altar of His deceptive seraph,
murmuring whispered hymns of faux conviction,

“oh, father art thou in great heaven
relieve us from our sin and this endless bereavement.”

but God stays silent, choosing to keep His ethereal form
sheltered; a spectral pillar held by wisps of transient desperation

to us, faith was a promise—it was sisyphus ascending the steps
with the weight of the world on his shoulders

only to be spurned at the pearly gates and sent tumbling
back down into caustic mortality 

impatient as any young child would be, the itch to rouse
smoldered in fervor and finally tore me from my worship

i took a peek from the corner of my eye,
watched as my father basked in the fading daylight

weeping, as if struck by a poison arrow to his nape
myself only regarding in dither as perdition’s curare set in.

he clung to his prayer like a newborn fawn to its mother;
blindly mewling for solace as the lightning stokes flames 

and felt those tears cascade as palatial breakers,
requiems of the living in murky depths below.