In Your Heavy Robe

  —for Richard Wyatt

How they lionized his death,

St. Vincent de Paul’s,

peerless bird

who flew through gates

forbidden to the merely rich. How the earth

wailed up, faces clouded

and wept when death diminished

their champion, swirling

to sacrosanct. Love

refined to flying colors soared

to where the dead

glitter and float

in celestial gowns.

Is it simply luck that makes the dead

so fine? No,

it’s deliver us from evil

and thine becomes mine, if only

second-hand. Everyone sins

but the poor sin badly—

the poor sin more easily forgiven.

You tried to kiss a saint

on the mouth! How alone

you must feel, your heavy robe gathering

madness like a storm.