Pope takes a nap

the mass was long-

winded and the Cardinals were antsy

fidgeting under their blood-red cassocks

and as the choir hymned

an unexpectedly jazzy account

of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s

“Stabat Mater”, the napping Pope,

heretofore ignored, grunted

a deep-throated grunt

of papal disapproval, an almost

lunger-inspired grunt which

caused the congregation to laugh

waking the sleepy-eyed Pope who

instinctively began blessing

all who gathered there, and

in a sense, the choir’s crazy rendition

of Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater” as well.

of course I wasn’t there, but Marco Marcucci

heard it from Joey Fonseca who said he was,

and Marco told uncle Octavio Pieroni who

told William, my father who then told Romeo Levesque

who told his wife, my cousin Edith, eldest

daughter to Uncle Frank Toni, famed cobbler

to the residents of the north-end of town, and

this is the process with which the book of Genesis was written.