St. Joseph's Day, Star of the Sea
Rent from DeepDyve- St. Joseph's Day, Star of the Sea
Saint Roch, New Orleans, 2016
I know right from wrong—Saint Joseph always fed my children.
On St. Joseph's Dayeveryone is fedwho wants to be:plates of spaghetti, a fava bean for luck.
I stand before the Saint Josephshrine at the Saint Roch Church Star of the Sea whose priest came to uslast fall at 5 am after I'd spent hourscalling churches reaching no one I needa priest for my uncle for mymother for my uncle she is worriedfor his soul I don't knowwhen I ask another sister if it still counts to be blessed after [End Page 119] the heart has stopped the blood, cooled, cooling—
yes says the deep-voicedNigerian priest at Saint Roch but I will have to come soon
on the altar: sesame seedssprinkled by Sicilian hands around the braided loaves lamb-shaped cakesfava beans to remember the drought Saint Joseph stopped remember the mob who lynchedthe survivors' descendants not far from here alien hands saidthe flier who rallied them blot upon our vaunted civilization
after Katrina the altars in wide whiteemergency tents where people who survived fed people who survived
inside the tents the long folding tables food stacked anchovied pastaspice on the lips plastic plate buckled in abundancelike the tables of the Most Merciful in the streets of Alexandriawhen the voice at sunset calls out to break the Ramadan fast
on the altarlilies oranges almond cookiesbread shaped like turtles like purses of Saint Joseph to remember the poor [End Page 120] like the Shroud of Turin: yes a shroud of bread
prayer cards of Saint Joseph the Father Joseph the Worker brown-skinned Saint Joseph whatwe would call nowa Middle Eastern man
white candles for our fathersfor my Middle Eastern husband for my uncle who was not a believer though we held his handand prayed around him hallowed be thy name people are bartering children for safe passage peopleare washing up like fish after a spill watch the world's back turnturning them back to where they fled what have we become what have we yetto become I shudder to— shudder before this bread we cannot eat before this bread we can this bread called aish in Arabic the word for life also a word people chanted in the streets [End Page 121]
Andy Young teaches at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. Her work has appeared recently or is forthcoming in Waxwing, Southern Humanities Review, and Ecotone. Her fourth chapbook, John Swenson Dynamicron, is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press, and her full length poetry collection, All Night It Is Morning, was published by Diálogos Press.
