Gazing out the open double window
at the steel-gray day, bare-boned oaks begging
in winter silence on the street below,
you stand in cardinal’s garments, begin
breathing softly on your reading glasses,
brush them clear on your cotton cassock sleeve.
You’ve been writing your memoirs. Time
passes
slowly in exile, you say. You
won’t leave
the U.S. embassy for fifteen years.
When you do, settling in Vienna, you’ll
murmur the Vatican’s betrayed you, clear
your throat, praise God, refuse to be a tool
of Rome. Told you’re stripped of office, you start
your phonograph, pray, listen to Mozart.
Roger Armbrust
February 15,
2013
