Most nights I can see the lit steeple
of the church where I was baptized.
I returned there only to play basketball
or Friday night dances where once
I may have kissed a girl named Cheryl.

I was a little kid in another church
not five miles from where I sit, playing
with the glass eyes of my mother’s
mink stole, when the church PA
picked up an AM station spinning
Freddie “Boom Boom” Cannon,
so let us pray, “you’ll never know
how  great a kiss can feel.” Amen.

My father’s funeral was in the Lutheran church
across Auburn Street from my junior high.
During prayer, my grandmother whispered,
“wouldn’t it be nice if he popped open
that lid and said – just kidding?”

The year before, I was married there
on a rainy night in June.
God was stern then. Still,
it would have been nice.

Photo: Cathedral of The Immaculate Conception,
Portland, Maine – September 2018