Rose– Blessed Art

she among women – would not permit me to say “goddamn” – she said, “B Francis, people who talk that way go to hell for a longer stay,” something she learned from Mother Church so she told me over sixty years ago between rosaries meant to redeem me – If I wanted to push my luck I would say, Bobdammit! – or – I’ll be Bobdamned! which made her laugh (bitterly) since it confirmed we had nothing we could agree upon, nothing unholy upon which we couldn’t agree – my father who said “Goddamn!” whenever he pleased was later than my mother in becoming a poem, but after illness, brief wellness and terribler illness, he did became one, by which I mean a man who found his tune his time his riddling form –