Still Friends

Still Friends

Still Friends

July 16, 2015

Before retiring for the night.

 

I used to turn women’s heads

But no one looks twice at a middle-aged priest.

Since I took the collar

Countless friends

Have one by one disappeared;

My name, I imagine

Invoked less and less

Amidst the closed pockets of open society

But when invoked

Invoked with a marked increase of

Piteous contempt.

Had I seen then what I see now

I would not have tried so hard to be esteemed!

 

Still friends, I suppose

All of them

Who have thus given me this freedom.