My Mother Beat Up a Nun (poem)

As if someone had drop-kicked an Irish penguin

The devout woman, flew

Back, head first,

Her arms splayed in the air

As if someone had pushed Gestas to the ground for their impenitence,

The shadow of a cross heavy, falling

Down, head whacking concrete,

That awkward arrival that happens when a person

Has not been knocked down enough to know how to land.

Desperate to catch her breath,

And staring up at heaven,

Seeing God for perhaps the first time in the form

Of a thrice divorced harlot cocking back, The Fallen,

Nose banished from face like an unclean spirit,

Eye’s struggling to see the Glory at her feet,

Summer’s mid-day lights flashing off of ringed fingers.

When I was seven I watched my mother beat up a nun.