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It was then I realized

As the wafer of communion
Was placed with fingertip precision
At the flat-side of my tongue,

The wafer I couldn’t swallow,

The one that stuck

To the roof of my mouth,

From the tongue to the sacrament,
The holy eucharist,
The tongue sticking it to Jesus,

The tongue of Judas and the Priests —

The tongue later retracted
In a booth at Al Mac’s Diner,

A plate of eggs over easy,
With friends at the table,
That life was traveling forward

In another direction

From that of the doctrines
Of the Holy Rosary Church,

The church with its stone facade
Rising on a low-lying hilltop
Behind left field.

Inez at the Diner was more inviting —

The music of Jerry Lee Lewis
Romancing from the juke,

Superseding the Agnus Dei,— 
Inez of the Diner
Smiling as we sat in the booth at her section;
Inez, who wore an artificial flower
Pinned to the lacy collar of her dress of fading pink,
Inez, who called me "Honey"

And wouldn’t he have smelled like olives

And stale perspiration?

Wouldn’t Inez have let him in
To wash the crusted skin
Of his sun-burned feet?

Wouldn’t our dead friend be made living

And baseball made whole again?

So at the rail for the last time

I rose from a kneeling position,—

And on my way to the world outside,
When Jesus called my name for the last time

I said:— “Now who do, who do

You think you’re foolin’?”

                                        Fall River