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Ephphatha
for Dorothy Moran
When the pandemic hit, the priest
died first. Refrigerator trucks chilled the dead.
The parish stacked the hymnals in tubs
and St. Mark’s/ San Marcos closed in Queens,
the mocked Simon and Garfunkel borough
where coins in dryers clickety-clicked like clocks
in European town squares.
Seven months later, Roosevelt Avenue
jounces with mango slices in Zip-locks.
The vestry interviews me. Last day of August,
no AC, we sweat and fidget with our N95 masks.
The wardens, Henry and Jorge, jigger
the broken tumbler to unlock the safe.
“Cut the parish hall in half, don’t fundraise,
leverage the lot. Less people in church,”
says a new bishop from his Zoom-perch.
A woman stands in the garden.
Forever a woman stands in the garden.
She rides the 7 to work, is over ninety,
first woman to work on Wall Street.
Much she won’t tell or only tell me.
My invisible incomprehensible work.
I go where I am sent.
A bloated deacon gossips and picks
at the many pimples on his forehead.
O, buckling blue esotery falling all apart!
My anonymity increases with each entrance.
Will our hope be transfigured by this dust?
My black uniform sticks to my pocked back
like a sealed envelope.
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Spencer Reece is the canon and rector of historic St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Wickford, Rhode Island. He has published three books of poetry: The Clerk's Tale, The Road to Emmaus, and Acts. In addition, he published The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Poet’s Memoir and All The Beauty Still Left: A Poet’s Painted Book of Hours, watercolors. He edited Counting Time Like People Count Stars: Poems By The Girls of Our Little Roses. He founded an author series connected to his church called the 14 Gold Street Author Series, in which writers read at the public library and are hosted for a meal at the rectory.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Art Garfunkel, left, and Paul Simon in front of the latter’s childhood home at 137-62 70 Road in Kew Gardens Hills, spring 1975.