When we were kids an alley separated our houses,
you were the new girl; all exotic from the city, your dad
didn’t have calluses; called your mom, Mother.

Swiping her Winstons we pantomimed grown-ups,
I was all debonair, you, demure-unsteady in high heels;
a schoolboy crush waiting to blossom.

When your dad lost his job, he started working second shift
at my old man’s bar slinging drinks and bouncing drunks;
the regulars called him Firpo.

It was the year Father Dulcina performed Latin Mass
for our Confirmation; we pretended we knew the words,
hummed along, slightly out of tune and out of breath.

Afterward, we smoked weed in the woods behind the church,
my clip-on tie lost, suit smudged dirty; your handmedown
dress hiked above your knee.

I wondered aloud what being filled with the Holy Ghost
felt like. You took my hand, placed it on your heart,
held it there a moment too long.