Magnolia

So that no boy’s hand
tugs a girl’s hair
or wanders to his nose,
the photographer has had
all forty or so pose
with arms folded frankly
across their chests—
the picture taken
in front of their one-room
schoolhouse, all dressed
in their best knee-length
suits and dusty,
laced-up boots.
They range in age
from maybe six
to sixteen, but only one
or two have allowed themselves—
or gotten away with—
a smile.  Their teachers,
the two women at the back
in high, white starched shirts
are the only ones
whose arms aren’t crossed.
But their pupils stare past
the man, black-hooded
like an executioner,
in what they’ve accepted
as the posture in which
one meets eternity—
especially those
who have seen their fathers
similarly arranged,
but framed
in a long pine box,
their eyes forever closed
just as the flash went off.

The Priests of My Adolescence

When I see on the news some damaged guy
my age, and across the courtroom the priest,
white-haired and impassive, unrepentant,
I think back to high school, and the Jesuits
who guided my own spurt from boy to man:

studious Father R, who explained to me,
non-Catholic that I was, exactly how Christ
was killed by the Crucifixion, the slow
agony of the asphyxiation;
and jovial Father T, portly and bald,

who’d boxed in his youth and called everyone “Champ”
(at least the boys—I don’t know what he called
the girls).  And our young principal, Father E,
whom my mother may have had the slightest
crush on, mentioning that he was good-looking.

He also had a habit of appearing
in our locker room, just as we’d come in
sweaty from the playing fields and peeling off
our shorts to shower.  I don’t think he was there
to deliver some post-athletic speech

of inspiration; he’d just mill about
in a corner, arms crossed in front of his chest,
maybe saying something to the coaches,
while we moved quickly under the nozzles
and refrained from our usual snapping

of the thin white towels.  By the time we were dressed
he had vanished, perhaps to reappear
an hour later for the freshmen.  Sometimes
one of us was summoned to his office
for a punishment.  The guilty party

would emerge some time thereafter, red-faced
and never wanting to talk about it.
Just last year, I saw where old Father E,
now long-reassigned to another school,
had abruptly resigned from the priesthood—

citing illness—just as the prosecutors
were closing in.  Young men had come forward…
And aside from the usual thoughts of
“There but for the Grace…,” I wondered about
all the mouths over the years that had opened

in acceptance, unsuspecting, of the host
he dropped—or if those faithful wondered too,
if they ever saw in his sky-blue eyes
what he must have seen himself, just as the steam
was clearing from our locker room mirrors,

before he passed back into the blinding sun.

Runaway

You’d think I’d done it just last week,
the way my mother still brings up
the time I ran away, at eight
or nine, and stayed unfound for hours.
In a cave of my own making
beneath the bleachers at the park
I hid, nursing some slight now long-
forgotten, and the growing sense
of my own power, watching as
the afternoon slowly darkened,
and the other kids ran off the fields
toward their houses.  I stared out
as various vehicles passed;
a patrol car crept by, looking,
probably, for me.  It stopped, once,
almost, but kept going.  I held
my breath till it turned the corner.
Streetlights were blinking on, the air
cooling, when I made up my mind   
that they had been punished enough,
and slipped on home the mile or so
by way of the alleys and back yards.
I walked in then as if nothing
had happened, like I’d just come home
from work, and as if my parents
weren’t frantic.  When their tears had dried
they immediately marched me off
to the police station, where I
stared up at a tall man behind
a tall counter and whispered out
an apology.  He must have
heard it, nodding that way, but I
don’t think my parents ever did.

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