Poem: 'Holes' (on the Feast Day of St. Michael Moros)

I didn’t know my wife had a two-drink minimum.

I mean, I should have realized by now. I never remember having only one drink with her. And there we were, early in July at Blackjack Mulligan's bar in Garfield, NJ, where the waitresses wear “I love BJs” t-shirts and they serve authentic pirogies from Piast’s down the street.

I had wolfed down my portion and was ready to leave, when my wife said she would like another glass of wine. So I stared out the window at St. Peter’s Greek Catholic Cemetery, in disrepair, across the street. My friends in the NJ Poetry Circle at The Sanctuary community center in Butler provided a prompt for our writing that week: one word, "holes."

I kept thinking about the prompt. Later, I took my wife by the hand to wander in the cemetery. Still later, I wrote a poem:

Holes 

Across the street from BJ’s Bar, next to Walmart,

on the Feast Day of St. Michael Moros,

the 98th anniversary of his death and entrance into Heaven,

I pass through rusted iron gates on a sweltering day in Garfield, NJ.

A sign reads, “No Dogs Allowed.”

This is St. Peter’s Cemetery, perpetually open since 1895,

where I wander among 2,600 holes in the ground,

2,600 bodies in decay, and not a single soul to be found.

I gather and dispose the litter in my path, 

then brush matted grass from stone to reveal the names of the dead.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

It has been 20 years since my last Confession,

the day my earthly father died.

My sin is this: I lost my faith that day.

I am here to reclaim it among the toppled crosses,

the stone angels worn with age,

the paper flowers blown into haphazard piles.

I linger along the back edges of the grounds,

bounded by the remains of the Saddle River,

with a stained and matted teddy bear on its banks,

before it empties into the Passaic.

For this and all my past sins, I am heartily sorry.

I seek forgiveness from Steven and Mary Seelagy,

a married couple in their late 80s,

who died a month apart in 1989.

I seek forgiveness from Carlos Samuel Cruz,

who died in 2012 at age 65,

“Always in Our Hearts,” but no obituary to be found.

I seek forgiveness from Fernando Gonzalez Sr.,

dead in 1999 soon after his 67th birthday.

I seek forgiveness from Jesse M. Rivera, “Saintly Scholar,”

who died in 2008 at age 18.

A guitar fretboard is impaled next to his grave;

he died in prison, a suicide.

I found Joan Zavinsky’s portrait face down on a trampled path

and returned it to where she was buried in 2001.

She lived to 85; her photo showing her forever young.

Her husband, Joseph, died in 1977. His portrait is fixed and stern.

Then there are more young: Charles Mancuso, age 19, who died in 1932,

Anna Marynak, 3 years old, who died in 1920,

neighboring 1931 graves of Marie Cupo and Anna Kulik, both 1 year old,

near the pristine stone of Michael Moros, 1 day old, July 2-July 3, 1927.

I finger another bead in the pocket of my jeans.

You don’t need to linger at each grave.

I will count the dead for you:

59 names, including generations of entire families…

11 Barnas, 9 Babyaks, 8 Balints,

6 Miskes, 5 Ditinicks,

including all 3 sons who died young,

4 Gburs and 4 Dutkeviches.

All buried here, where my father was born.

I summon these foresaken dead,

with a prayer for each soul

on the 59 raven-black beads of my father’s rosary.

I stay until I stand forgiven before the Lord.

Now I implore Michael Moros, infant saint:

“Restore my faith!

Raise my father to life for just one day,

and I will doubt God’s grace nevermore.”