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The Tabernacle and the Passport

 

The Tabernacle and the Passport

Two years, three weeks, and a lifetime of cold, I sit where the hearse stood, where stories were told. The ghost of a coffin, the weight of the wood, Still lingers right here where the mourners once stood.

I’m stepping toward Rome in seven days’ time, With freezing cold fingers and verses that rhyme. I look at the Box where the Sacred resides, The only thing real where the memory hides.

Should I carry Him with me? I ask of the stone, Or are Rosary beads enough on my own? A crutch for the journey, a light in the dark, Like the disco-light glow in a Friday night spark.

I remember the "door" that the medicine threw wide, When the dead came to whisper and sit by my side. I kept it a secret—I stayed in the hull— While Dre found her voice in the wake of the lull.

She spoke to the doctors, she challenged the line, While I sat in silence, with secrets like wine. But here in the stillness, beneath the church spire, I’m making my peace with the God and the fire.

I’ll talk to Him here, then I’ll talk to Him there, From St. Margaret Mary’s to Italian air. The name on the book and the stamp on the page, A daughter, an author, a soul come of age.

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