Saint Andre
Saint Andre was a new
one on me, but there
I was in Saint Andre Besette
Catholic Church, genuflecting
for the first time in maybe
fifty years. Above the altar
the sad lustrousness of You Know
Who and, beyond Him,
all the old threats and the dread —
and somewhere completely
out of sight, Sister Gracie S.S.N.D.
fingering her rosary and listening to
Def Leppard on the sly.
That feeling of those cruel slaps
to the wrists and hands
by the elder nuns,
their black bad habits in Catechism
Class who, because they
possessed those wooden rulers, must
have — on occasion — intended
the measure of something
more or something else.