Church-Going

Accosted, near childhood's end.
"Want a piss?' he said, "Want a piss?'
Dorcas Street. Blank winter light.
Already late for mass, I ran.
His eyes were quick and dark as
an animal's: between mouse and rat…
As I grew up, I saw him around
the place — alone, with women.
The one with balding red hair,
skin tight on flaccid body,
the one who'd pestered me on the tram —
I saw him often at church,
would stare through his toadish look:
pink whisky-man in caramel suit.
Then Father Dunphy with his retreats:
black metanoia as he roared up details
of botched abortions, foetuses wrapped
in newspaper, crying from dustbins.
Agape, Eros — they were abortions, too.
Wanting to know what I did not know,
frightened of it all, each night
I struggled in with spiky heels,
suspended nylons, all awkwardly new.
At its ripening, the body turns oceanic,
hungers to take and give life.
Marble stations of the cross. Peccadillos
whispered from a carved wood box.
I have come that you may have life,
and have it more abundantly.