Paula Cunningham

i.m. Marty Crickard I came to light a candle for a friend but Jesus had a really bad mustache and those were only pinpricks in his palms so I passed on. I came to light a candle for a friend but Joseph’s hands were manicured and soft as Fairy Liquid hands I could not light one there so I passed on. In the corner was a fellow with a cowled robe and a tonsure like a saucer — he palmed a young and curly blonde Adonis — so I passed on then to Benoît-Joseph Labre, a tattered man whose wide eyes blazed, he looked quite mad, had beggar’s hands, I liked him. I lit two dozen candles, didn’t pay, and nicked this book on him before I left. I did all this in honor of my matchless absent friend, whose honest calloused workman’s hands maintained the half of Belfast, and nothing’s been the same since he passed on.