“Those who pray recover from illness
and injuries twice as fast as atheists.”
When I turned twelve and feared I’d go to hell,
I used to write lists of my mortal sins
on paper scraps I tucked into my wallet.
Each time I broke one of the big commandments—
not little ones, such as to honor parents
which even Jesus, like me the son of peasants,
had never really managed to obey—
I’d score a mark next to the sin’s code name.
ITA meant Impure Thoughts and Actions,
which, I was told, were what was forbidden
by Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery
and Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Wife.
ITA got almost all my slash marks,
like the front runner in a landslide election.
Although I treaded ants and swatted flies
I never checked the “K” for “Shalt Not Kill.”
And though I coveted my neighbors’ goods,
such as the boy next door’s Deluxe Parchisi,
I never stole, but only begged and whined
until I got the stuff I really wanted—
everything except the model airplane,
marked “$10” in the dime-store window,
which really flew, and burned real gasoline.
All year I hoarded lunch and candy money,
then, on my birthday, my rich uncle Tony
doubled my life savings with a five.
Abe Lincoln’s kindly portrait seemed to say:
“You’re free, boy. What you want is yours.”
I waved the bill and danced a jig of joy.
And then, out of the blue, my mother said,
“That plane’s dangerous. I won’t let you buy it.”
“Goddamn you to Hell I hate you!” I spat out
and ran up to my room and slammed my door
and barricaded it with a chest of drawers.
Even now, as I write down my curse,
I shake with rage. What I remember best
of eighteen years of living with my mother
is the one thing she wouldn’t let me buy,
not even with my own hoarded money.
I dreamed, again, last night of that plane.
I laid my crisp new five and wrinkled ones
and quarters, nickels, pennies, and a dime
on McCrory’s shiny counter, and the clerk
with hooks instead of hands clawed up my cash
and punched ten dollars in the register,
and everything I’d been denied was mine,
until I woke and remembered my dead mother.
This is my confession of the sin
I never marked down on my childish list.
I doubt that it will ever be forgiven.