A Letter to Saint Peter

by C. M. McLean

In February waking late the night comes fast. I walk the same streets smoking cigarettes, endlessly. And then in the darkness I write bringing my words onto the page like leaves that fall farther away into empty space. Yesterday afternoon by the Ashuelot River I saw a man throw himself into the water. For hours I felt a strange peace.
My teeth are rotten, it's carelessness and I spend so much time in the kitchen light. I recall the gypsies in Brussels, dirt-covered with a child or a doll in their arms begging for change. I gave them nothing or a fiery glance. And then I rested by the fountains while the hours passed like birds.
Television shows leave me sleepless. All night in the dark praying for the courage to reach and turn the light switch. Airplanes overhead grow louder and ladders clang against the side of the house.
But now, the light shines through the stained glass portrait of Christ. Walking in this hall you know it is Christ. And there at the Last Supper, the southern light is beautiful, isn't it? The bread of his body unblessed, the wine black and unstained.
And this is March at it's end. All of these guns are antique, no longer in use. They were my father's before he passed away. It was shortly after the war, I was young and he laid down to sleep. Dreaming I saw his hands for months reaching down at me. But soon, April comes and the winter returns as a wind at dusk or in the twilight of black afternoons.