it doesn’t get any easier, even if you keep a straight face

The Wrong Rev wore a Dacron shirt,

and began the eulogy by kissing a

statue of the Buddha.

“Brothers and sisters,” he said.

“The lonely, tragic hoarders and

haters are among us!”

The mourners in the back pews

flicked their Bics and threw their

damn hands up.

That’s when I excused myself.

I was a little cranky.

I needed a smoke.

I stood outside by a statue of a menopausal Mary;

she looked fatigued as if she were In the

Shadow of a Compromise.

There was a shabby but respectable hotel across

the street with undergraduate memories of

ashen-faced blondes in smocked dresses and

tweed blazers, who were cheek-deep in

existential despair and complaining of

“precarious nervous conditions.”

There were secrets hidden within those

walls and layers of pain, too.

I considered checking in but was experiencing

Oscillations of Faith.

I finished my smoke, tossed it on the ground,

and stamped it out.

Looking back over my shoulder into the Sanctuary,

(I’d left the door open),

I noticed the Wrong Rev was sweating, and

trying to get hold of the dearly departed soul.

“You were but a bubble on a puddle,” he said.

“A bubble that spluttered on a puddle.”

I’d heard enough.

I walked home, laid down on my bed,

dreamed of delusions of morality,

and didn’t crack an eye until

11 o’clock the following morning.