poem of the day 05.31.13

father sebastian

we all knew about father sebastian

could tell all there was about him

by the way he walked through the halls at school

his sing-song and joyful lisp during masses

and the way he waved his hands so carefree

some of us liked to go to him to confession

to see if father sebastian would try to look at us

over his shoulder

as we told him how many times we jerked off in a day

he always had a favorite amongst us

father sebastian ran the catholic youth organization

and loved being around the basketball team

he took a liking to my friend dave

paid dave money to clean the parish grounds and the gym

but dave got wise pretty quickly to father sebastian

he quit working and never said why although we all knew

especially when father sebastian started calling dave’s house

crying on the phone to his mother for almost an hour

so concerned about why dave no longer came around

eventually the diocese got wise to father sebastian too

they moved him from parish to parish

in typical catholic fashion

thinking that a change of scenery

would fix all that was hungering inside the man

but eventually even the moves couldn’t protect

those humble god fearers from father sebastian

and when the scandals become too public he drifted south

into florida and then into cuba

where he found some solace in the politics of the gay scene

his family’s money, and in the arms of a much younger man

a few years later when they found him dead in havana

strangled and pumped full of animal tranquilizers

everyone said  that they knew something like this would happen

and that they were happy someone else got him

before he got to their kids

some news reports said

that father sebastian was into male prostitution and porn

others called him a cuban revolutionary

but in all of the parishes on sunday morning

no one said anything about father sebastian

no one even offered a prayer

the virginal priests stood at their pulpits

and told everyone how to act in order to get to heaven

and they all prayed for the usual bullshit

in typical catholic fashion too.