poem
Volume 33, Number 4

Bread

Salvatore Cordileone, San Francisco's archbishop, declared May 20 that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is "not to be admitted" to Communion unless and until she publicly repudiates her support for abortion rights and apologizes "for her cooperation in this evil." Cordileone added, "Christians have, indeed, always upheld the dignity of human life in every stage."

Let’s play a game called
who gets the bread?
Fathers Billante,
Cunha, Dabbene,
Green, Freitas,
Kiesle, Schipper,
Superiaso,
Van Handel, convicted
kid-diddlers, priests
in Cordileone’s
archdiocese, they
got served, and he,
Cordileone, archbishop,
had to know each
Sunday when he put
the bread, the Body
of Christ, into all
those mouths
yet said
nothing.

It’s in
silence, in ceremony’s
long eclipse that
evil thrives—the SBC
Southern Baptist Convention
published 205
pages of pastors
who raped,
molested girls, boys,
children, four perps
to a page, fifteen years
of data held
private until 2019,
all that bread
shared, eaten without
a word because
when you rape a
child it becomes
okay if you just feel
sorry.

Down the road
from the archdiocese,
Proud Boys storm
Drag Queen Story Hour
shout slurs
in front of kids,
threaten volunteers
teaching literacy
to kids—but these
kids are born, out,
free of the birthing
tank some called
the womb, meaning
fair game, meaning
silence.

Priest,
the Other
seems evil only
in isolation;
the bravest
make a place for it
at their table—

this is communion.


—Bern Mulvey