Calling Home From a Phone Booth Outside a Pub in North Dublin

Despite an icy north­east wind huff­ing across the bay I sneak out after dark, after my mother falls asleep clutch­ing her leather Bible, and I hike up the rut­ted road to the frosted meadow to stand in mist with my shoes in muck, and toss my echo against the moss-covered field­stone cor­ners of the burned-out church where Sunday nights in sum­mer for years Father Thomas, that mad hand­some priest, would gather us girls in the base­ment to dye the rose cot­ton linen cut-outs that the deacon’s daugh­ter, a thin beauty with short white hair and long trim nails, would stitch by hand each folded edge then steam-iron flat so full of starch, stiff­en­ing fab­ric petals, which we silly Sunday school girls curled with quick sharp pulls of a scis­sor blade, form­ing clus­ters of curved petals the younger chil­dren assem­bled with Krazy glue and fuzzy green wire, some­times adding tis­sue paper leaves, all of us gladly labour­ing like fac­tory work­ers rather than have to colour with crayon stubs the robe of Christ again, Christ with his empty hands invit­ing us to dine, Christ with a shepherd’s staff sig­nalling to another flock of puffy lambs, or naked Christ with a droop­ing head crowned with black­ened thorns, and Lord how we laughed later when we went door to door in groups, vis­it­ing the old parish­ioners, the sick and bit­ter­sweet, all the near dead, and we dropped our bikes on the per­fect lawns of dull neigh­bours, agnos­tics we sus­pected, hawk­ing our hand­made linen roses for a dona­tion, brag­ging how each petal was hand-cut from a pat­tern drawn by Father Thomas him­self, that mad hand­some priest, who per­son­ally told the Monsignor to go for­ni­cate him­self, say­ing he was a dis­grun­tled altar boy call­ing home from a phone booth out­side a pub in North Dublin, while I sat half-dressed, sniff­ing incense, giddy and drunk with sacra­ment wine stains on my panties, whis­per­ing my oath of unholy love while wig­gling uncom­fort­ably on the mad priest’s lap, but God he was beau­ti­ful with a fine chis­elled chin and per­fect teeth and a smile that would melt the Madonna, and God he was kind with a slow gen­tle touch, never harsh or too quick, and Christ how that crafty devil could draw, imi­tate a rose petal in per­fect out­line, his sharp pen­cil slanted just so, the tip barely touch­ing so that he could sketch and drink, and cough with­out jerk­ing, with­out ruin­ing the work, or tear­ing the tis­sue paper, thin as a mem­brane, which like a clean skin arrived fresh each Saturday deliv­ered by the dry clean­ers, tucked into the crisp black vest­ment, wrapped around shirt card­board, pinned to pro­tect the high collar.