Sunday Morning Last
You can have the sunrise or an illuminated missal,
But you can’t have both. History has shown this.
But you can’t have both. History has shown this.
You’ll have to choose between sabbath and solstice,
Pixels or paper. Pharmacology or prayer.
Maybe you should feel a little flattered.
Not everyone is offered such choices.
Some look away, or turn their faces to the wall,
Or sit weeping into a pile of unwashed laundry
Until it’s time to pick up the kids. Ask yourself:
Just how unique does your suffering really have to be?
True, it’s the only thing that will ever be yours and yours alone.
Alone, you worry it like beads until it’s burnished.
Others are worse off than you? So what?
Is martyrdom now the price of salvation?
A boy in my daughter’s class
Immolated himself on Father’s Day.
It seems
Jesus wasn’t only sunk for you.
About the Author
Shawn Brophy is a hospital clerk and sometime voice actor from Southeastern Wisconsin. He studied poetry with the late Donald Justice at the Iowa Writers Workshop. Poems by Shawn have appeared in Quarter After Eight, 45th Parallel, and South Florida Poetry Journal.