17 of 30

The Town Green

is soaked

with churchgoers

streaming to familiar seats,

their temporal reward

for piety the same

parking spot each week.

The men at the door,

dressed like they own

the country club, seem ready

to greet me, then suddenly not.

They know I mean to walk past.

Smiles decay; handshakes hang 

fire. Morn' they mutter in the fewest

civil syllables, regarding my leisure

like a caged animal. Morning,

I reply. A little past, in the ballfield,

the bubbler has been disguised

as a fierce lion, jaws agape

so the boy at play seems

to cheat death to retrieve

cool water. I walk past this

every Sunday, the thirsts slaked

just inside yawing peril. A grandmother,

barely taller than her steering wheel,

pulls into the lot, kisses the clear

plastic cross hung from her rearview

three times. She means it.