Sunday with Mr. Penny

Sundays meant religious school.
The rock of my atheism.
This small-town synagogue,
modest and proud,
a statement “We are here,”
though I prayed I wasn’t.

The teacher droned
about Cain and Abel,
or was it Jacob and Esau?
I retained no lesson but
the memory of his white noise
and of Seth Stern’s halitosis,
where I first learned
bodies are foul
and adults were clueless.

All the shades of beige and gray
drank in the fluorescent lights
and spat back dread.
I learned nothing from books.
I saw letters, not words.
But I did read the room,
compelling as a refrigerator repair manual.

At our break,
about a month into the day’s lesson,
I would escape to the basement
where, next to the men’s room
was the warm, softly lit furnace room
where sat Mr. Penny
our custodian and resident saint,
his feet propped on his metal desk,
creaking chair leaning back,
reading his bible
as though blessing the boiler.

I wish I could remember
the words we traded
as well as I can picture
that warm smile welcoming me in
broad and gleaming
against his deep ebony.

An antidote
to the sour stink
and the endless lesson.

April 2024