Poetry

By the time of March Madness, entries were pouring in for the Foley poetry contest, with its $1,000 prize. We heard from Ljubljana, Slovenia; Alicante, Spain; Lagos, Nigeria; and Vatican City; plus Dijon, Edmonton, Queensland and Kerala State.Forty entries came to us from the seventh grade at Lakesi

Saying the prayer Christ taught us,we are mindful that in ritual timeHe is still saying, “Our Father Who Artin Heaven.” His words echothrough the Holy Spirit from mouthto mouth, so that when we say,“Our Father Who art in Heaven,”we are mindful that others tooare saying, &ldqu

“Repeat this prayer 10 times,send it to 15 friends.Within 3 days you will receive a blessingyou have been waiting for.”Who is this God, I wonder, who people thinkhas to be begged, cajoled,and manipulatedinto caring for his children?He is not my God.Still, it makes no sense, what we call

This bowl must have been hanging in its treeabove the cars and parking meters, above menwrapped like pods and sleeping in doorways,above the coffee cup lids, newsprint cubism, andthe quintillion cigarette remnants of sidewalk still life.And now it’s underfoot, a sudden flash on wet pavement,it

The old woman in ICU wants to rail against the Church.Patriarchy, she says, hierarchy, and I agree.She looks just like my mother.But you’re dying, I say.Why are we talking about this?Why does any of this matter?And the sun slants through the dusty window.My Roman collar chafes.On the monitor,

Kissing the cross,O precious cross,it blisters the lipslike the hot coalheld to Isaiah.O holy cross,there is a body on itwith a deep woundthe wound dealt by the worldto the hopes of God.O beautiful Godunrecognizablewho could not let us bein our blind man’s bluffour cruel humorsO spent fleshtha

We do not in our countryniche you at corners,crossroads, highway shrines.But in Karen’s face as she talks of her sonwhose pain will not redeem the world;as Marguerita, whose eldest will notsurvive her; in Sylvie, whose childlearned all his letters in his second yearand by age four had been con

In the stories I return to, people love each otherindirectly. Offering coins, their moonlitfaces. Not receiving too much credit.Like the man at work today who answered“How are you?” with “Blessed.” I thought,that’s not an answer to the question.Afterward, I spent the da

In certain folktales, she appears with Mary,pierced through with the scissors and needlesof girls who worked, forbidden, on Sundays.She is marred with knives, and scarredwith scythes wielded disobediently.I imagine Christ’s gentle hands, healinghis battered Saint, pulling nails from her flesh,