The Bishop
By Lao Rubert
–for the Right Reverends Mariann Budde, Anne Hodges-Copple and Scott Benhase
Before dawn she packs her briefcase
swivels its four gliding, revolving wheels
and marches through the door
in puffy down, long underwear
beneath her slacks. Garment bag
slung over her shoulder. Snow boots
grip black ice as she clicks
the car door open, slides in.
She arrives early, in time for the thick
El Salvadoran coffee Ana brews.
She has a speech to make.
Inside the drafty cathedral she dares
to lay a single word upon a silver tray.
Perhaps it is the audacity that offends
as she declares Mercy, and then again,
Have mercy, draping the phrase
like a string of pearls around his neck.
Disgraceful, insulting, fear-mongering,
he yelps, his power pricked.
Supplicants jeer, the street’s upended.
He stays up late, combats the words,
demands a mea culpa be extended.
There have been death threats, she smiles.
They’d like to see me dead.
No apologies. Instead, she packs her robes,
rochet and chimere, white and scarlet,
alongside her embroidered black tippet.
Outside, the traffic roars and wails.
Beggars make their afternoon requests
and the Bishop counts the miles that she must go
as tributes mix with calls for her demise.
Some say she’s blessed.
Lao Rubert lives in Durham, North Carolina. Her poems have appeared – or will appear – in Atlanta Review, Barzakh, Collateral, Mantis, Mom Egg Review, Muleskinner, Poetry East, The Avenue, The Marbled Sigh, Wordpeace, Writers Resist and elsewhere. Rubert has spent a career working to reform the criminal justice system.
Photo Credit: Steve Robbins via a Creative Commons license.
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