It must be somewhere here --
Pardon Road, piece of sliding land
Where a child learned
Crossing streets without Mother
The school’s counselor
Must be looking out the window
With an attaché case of mental cases
Her face an inkblot test on its own
The landmark is this church
Where choirboys were catechized
Learned the saints were somewhere else
The penitent’s swollen eyes
Told their hunger
A sacrifice that could save lives
It was in the corner
Black shirts were sold
Worn frequently except in wakes
A nook to taste a man’s first alcohol
The sharpness of words
It was all here, Pardon Road --
Even a couple’s first house
Where vomiting, chill, pale lips
Spared ladies from hard hands
And where photographs could hush
Even the deepest
sound
of
hypochondria
