Remembering how every day

I'd stop at the Hebrew National hot-dog cart
that sat in Back Bay Station.

Dollar fifty per? Or was it two bucks?

Always with mustard.

Remembering St Francis Chapel
and handsome, youthful Fr Tom
my newly-ordained confessor.

I deemed him a human monstrance,

showing forth the splendour of Christ.

Remembering Joe T,

the old Boston politician,

three times a candidate for mayor,

three times not quite making it,
who led a bunch of chapelgoers in the rosary

at 4.45 pm each weekday.

Remembering how I used my old religion
to try to fend off misery of soul,

to try to mute my toxic bigotries,

to try to manage sexuality,
and how it didn't work.