Back in St. Jude’s Room
Kneeling beneath the patterned bronze slats
spaced with holes that imitate the rags
of the saint’s clothes, his arms raised forever
frozen in God’s time over wicks yet untried
by hope and over the walls of jagged brick
blessed and polished dark marble and dark
corners seen when shadows are opened
by flickering candlelight, there is only the
candlelight here. The secular remains
on the outside, the war, movements,
domestic violence, television reruns.
We pray for Danny Coscarelli, my cousin
to return safely from Viet Nam, for Dad’s
soul, for the neighbors, aunts. Mom prays
for our teachers, for co-workers who orbit long
in our hearts, Mom counting on her rosary
silently while I whisper to our Father and Mary’s
prayer only a few times, only have a few I
have to say and then fall silent as the rosary sorting
continues near the movement of light and smoke.
Leaving again through doorframes into
outside, then the car, and passing
lawns where the sun shines
we drive home, cross the highway
but the silence has followed,
swallowed the small talk, with us not to speak
of all this again, understand the passing of
field and lawns and houses with opened
garage doors stand changed and drawn on
along the silence after morning.
Thomas Allbaugh‘s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, Amethyst Review, Whale Road Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, and a number of other venues. His chapbook of poems, The View from January, was published in 2020 by Kelsay Books. He has also published a collection of short stories and a novel.
Amethyst Review 