When bent on knees
With brush in soapy hand
And saltwater of
broken dreams
Running like Christ's blood stains
Over Master Yates' bony
boards,
I glimpse the sun of god
Slanting down like me mam's Irish needle
fingers
Through grey slatted shutters of this corporeal cell,
Her DVs,
dominus vobiscums,
Warn without end that man can serve only One
Master,
And this makes mistake, me fleeing her,
Pass faster.
Two more
years a slave and I'll be free.
Then, Mammy, I'll come home again to see
you.
I am, I am, I am a child of God,
I chant like novice penitent
reciting rosary:
I am, I am already free,
And on a good day,
sometimes,
Almost believe it.
Jeriah O. Quinn