Leon Markowicz (1940– )
Call Out
three quick rings
in Detroit
Hi Ma it’s your son
What’s the matter?
Are you OK? only
my fifth call home
in eleven years
I’m leaving the seminary,
said out loud for the first
time impossible to breathe
back in those fatal words
rehearsed for three weeks
afraid to break her heart
six months
from the altar of God
her only son offering Mass
just for her to pass through
the gates of heaven repay her
for all those years
she lugged bushel upon
bushel of other people’s wash
into her home bought
a mangle burned her right
hand ironing faster
and faster
to keep me out of Ford’s
River Rouge foundry
Did you lose your vocation?
Lose? like I lost those wool
gloves she sent me for Christmas?
lose as if I actually owned it?
lose forever never to find again?
I’m just not cut
out for this life
ain’t that the truth
nothing but the truth
certainly not
the whole truth
silence about the vote
cast by all the priests brothers
seminarians
in perpetual vows
three spare no’s
lined up behind the first
black ball
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