Unconventional Catholic.

Night tumbles into town, bruised
with black, whistling off marmalade
clouds pinching children and old women
into houses. She says you can't make up
for the day with penance or wrapping fingers
around marbled rosery beads but I know differently,
tonight in the maple air-- a man drops his keys
on the doorstep, "Jesus Christ".
Some people don't say their prayers
by bedsides,
with hard knees and cranked necks
in early evening.