Incident at Easter Mass
Pictured: St. Peter’s Basilica
Poem by: EDWARD REILLY
A sudden sprawl as Peter’s Epistle was being read.
It would have been a peaceful passing, at Mass,
When we were gathered to celebrate the Resurrection:
But then, Death is not something to be desired.
As she bent to succor her husband of fifty years.
We eased his head into her lap, a Pietà almost.
This had happened before, Sister Mary announced,
And would happen again until the very end.
By the time of the Asperges, he had recovered,
Enough to arise and smile at the attendants
Whilst they hooked him into their infernal machines,
His lifeline printed out in sinuous lines of ink.
Soon enough he was taken by ministering angels,
Each of us watching ourselves drifting away.
_________________________
Edward Reilly — b. 1944, Adelaide, South Australia, resident in Geelong (about 80 km. SW of Melbourne). Sessional tutor at Victoria University in literary & education studies. PhD (Poetics, Victoria Uni. 2000). Edward has been active in Geelong as a teacher & cultural organizer for the past 30 years, and enjoys reading as widely as possible, travel to strange strands & family. His writing has been published in journals and websites such as Cordite, Eureka Street & Redreaming the Plain (Melbourne), SideWalk (Adelaide), DiVerseCity (Austin), Nimrod (Tulsa), Río Grande Review (El Paso), Poetry Ireland Review (Dublin) and in trans. in Literatūra ir Menas (Vilnius).