Robert Ferrante

Sundays Off

Now the altar boys speak Spanish
As Carlotta whispers the Latin phrases
From the old days:
“Dominus vobiscum. Et cum spiritu tuo.”
With her late grandmother’s crystalline rosary
Entwined around her fingers
Head bowed, kneeling on padded maroon
She entreats the Virgin Mary
To get Enrique a good job and make Jose marry
    Daniela
And save the baby from becoming a bastard.

Never much for herself.
She has the church and her children
And Sundays off from the dress factory
When she proudly watches her son, Manuel, 
    serve Mass
With the gringo priest transferred from 
    Connecticut
Who looks like Robert Redford when he smiles
And makes an attempt at least to speak the
    language
Even though they cannot understand him most of
    the time.

Domingo. A time for good memories, not tears, 
    and plenty of food.
She will cook, but pretend her mother did most of 
    the work
And later, on the stoop, drift lazily into the cool
    city evening
Into visions of loving embraces and
Secret whispers that scale the walls and pierce the
Bricks of the distant prison that contains her heart. 

____

Robert Ferrante gave us no contact information or biography, so we do not know where he lives or anything about his life other than what one might deduce from this sole, brief poem.