Matthew Writes His Obituary in Red

Matthew, born 1969, died
(eventually) of an alcohol-related illness.
He is survived by lemon oil on pews, welts
of wax on holy cloth and an exhaled breath
of incense that had long pendulated inside his chest.

When he was an altar boy,
cassock flesh against his sneakers, Matthew
served faithfully: rung the bells,
prepared the host and wine. Once
he had the role of Jesus in the parish play,
and when his robe stripped from his shoulders,
the other kids laughed, and Matthew turned
a shade of red that would keep
claws in him for the rest of his life.

He helped with Easter egg hunts and talent
shows, mowed the church grounds, folded towels
for Father Mac’s wet body. In the back seat
of the priest’s white Buick, he remembered the tickle—
how it started in his stomach and never left.
Later, he would not say, “he touched me,”
he would say, “I remember how
his testicles hung like low fruit.”

The sacristy always smelled like alter wine,
aftershave, and something feral slinking
beneath the surface. The image of Father Mac’s
naked, wrinkled skin Matthew would spend
the rest of his life drinking away.
He left town with graduation money,
a ten-cassette case and an old Ford
exhausting across state lines. He held
jobs like beer bottles he’d later
return home to smash. A bottle cracked
on headstone was the closest thing he could
count as prayer. He baptized Father
Mac’s grave in piss, ran
it down with his car, screamed
into the ground and waited for God
to flinch. When he returned the next morning
to pick up the shards, still no one saw—
no outcry, no newspaper
story of a priest’s desecrated grave,
and so, he began again, praying,
baptizing—a ritual of rage.

Matthew was the second-fastest
runner in his family, possessed
by something raw and fevered,
he ran like forgetting lived at the end
of a mile. He told the truth
in blackouts, wrote the story in detox,
drank until his blood and body eventually
surrendered, and Matthew died, a red robe
still hanging in the back of his mind,
bright like fresh meat. And the world
carried on. And so did God.

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In lieu of flowers, please donate to BishopAccountability.org

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Kate Hanson Foster’s collection of poems, Crow Funeral was published in March 2022 by EastOver Press. She is also the author of Mid Drift, a finalist for the Massachusetts Center for the Book Award. Her writing has appeared in Birmingham Poetry Review, Comstock Review, Harper Palate, Poet Lore, Salamander, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is the co-host of the poetry podcast Table for Deuce, and co-editor of The Seat along with poet, Michael Schmeltzer. A recipient of the NEA Parent Fellowship through the Vermont Studio Center, she lives and writes in Groton, Massachusetts.