381 E. Cordova Street<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a bleak whiteness
\non Cordova Street mixed
\nwith rain and battleship gray.
\nSmiles are sad, even laughter has an eerie clang.
\nWhispers prevail and a fog off Burrard Inlet
\nsettles in at four o\u2019clock as the Sisters\u2019 Sandwich Line wraps
\nitself halfway around the block to the back alley
\nwhere wine, urine, vanilla extract and after-shave commingle
\ninto sickly stench. Men and women in their twenties, thirties
\nforties and fifties have a sameness of pallor and age,
\nshare needles, jugs and sex.<\/p>\n
A half-crazed, rheumy-eyed woman
\nknocks on my parish door insisting I exorcise her.
\nI protest with words she can\u2019t comprehend
\nlike, \u201cneeding the archbishop\u2019s permission,\u201d and \u201cneeding the holiness I do not have.\u201d
\nNothing I say matters. In frustration I give her my blessing\u2026.
\nthe one I\u2019d bestow on a child, a rosary, a holy card.
\nShe thanks me. I watch her step out of my door,
\nwalk down the steps to the sidewalk
\nbelt across Cordova Street, not looking east or west,
\noblivious to swirling traffic. She makes it. I wonder how.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n