The Pope Goes for a Stroll
  By Frances Hunter

Even the Pope finds himself longing for darkness.
- Robert Bly

It would be good if the Pope
stopped longing for darkness
and, instead, he looked out at the Square
before the tourists had their first cups
of cappuccino and he put on his old
blue moth-eaten toweling bathrobe
and his carpet slippers, imported
from England, and without shaving
or praying he sneaked out with
a loaf of yesterday’s bread from
the kitchen into the Square, named
for his predecessor who was married,
and if he shuffled along in his slippers
like any old tramp until he found a bench
and there he sat, gray hair gilded
in the morning’s gift of sunshine,
and he fed the pigeons
and noticed that they squabbled over
every crumb he let fall from his hands
and he smiled when a girl, a young
woman really, sat down on the bench
beside him and he saw that she was
like a ripe peach and also like his mother
before she bore him and if the Pope then
began to ask the girl about her life
and her hopes and he really heard
what she told him and he bore her words
with him like children when he strolled
back to his apartment and went in to shave
and put on his white cassock
to prepare to go on with his days.