Reflections on the passing of a Pope

My wife is laying out her medals on the bed,

Omens and talismen, plastic rosaries her grandfather gave her,

To hurry the Holy Father on his fog-choked ferry ride

Across the Styx;  God speed. Life jacket is optional

He seemed reluctant, like a man determined to repeat, rather than repent for,

History.

Considering he’d have preferential entry,

 Nothing to Declare..Elbowing ahead of foetuses and freedom fighters and

Poor Mrs Schiavo, (whose brain vacated years before the rest of her was

ready to go  so she left in eternal detention thinking  nothing in particular.

As he enters the Dead Popes Society, will he embrace them as equals,

The married and the venal. Or will he cut them dead?

(Should he set up house..with that other recent arrival, Mother Theresa?..,…(Or will she remain faithful to that  chisel-chinned, wooden- hearted Man , left hanging by the  Romans; punished for being annoying)

 Meanwhile millions mourn, ogling what’s left, marvelling

At how well he looks.

He’s armed with a candle,  a light-sword against a satanic Darth Vader. Will he look back?

(I heard 100,000 men-priests left the church during his reign… unable to balance their hearts with their hormones)

Anyway he’s gone. There will be black smoke soon

From the Holy City’s chimney… And maybe he’ll come back

As someone sane or black . Or both.

* Mrs. Schiavo, a woman who for many years was denied the right to end her life even though she was in a vegetative state since the age of 25.