Cuaresma

Fotografia de Soragrit Wongsa

               The bishop named his turtle Tortuga.

An austere choice, but the bishop is austere:

he wears old stained trousers and lives in the dark

to save on electric. Tortuga begins to search—

he wants touch the way we all want touch. 

Who knows his age or sex?

                                                     The bishop in a cape 

enters the office to light wax pots with a flourish.

With his ring we time when to press on the wax. 

Then I send letters to the archbishop, his Grace,

but I’m fairly sure they get misplaced. 

                                                                          I possess

a peculiar, dumb, and unidentified loneliness.

In the front door, a peephole to view guests. 

A Brit knocked and was ignored. Spaniards!

They are gregarious; they are unreachable.

               My bishop brays, chortles, scolds. It’s not dull.

All day I am the matador and he’s the bull.

Every day Señor Quesada visits. Retired, mysterious, 

four feet tall with his leather fedora, he sits 

mute in my office for hours. (Once he showed us 

a picture from the 1940s, and there he was 

with the same fedora!) I move around him. 

He might have been harmed under Franco. 

Maybe he’s gay (someone once said so). 

Hard to tell though, and who’s to say?   

Citizens interrupt Señor Quesada and me 

to drop off used clothes: 

                                              our church caters to the poor. 

Much in here is broken. Chairs missing arms.

Buzzers disconnected. Heaters short the electric.

Spencer Reece