in the presbytery is maxed out
from the exo-bike, beads of sweat drip
off his fingertips. He is purged
of the last house-boy from the
jungle parish in Papua New Guinea, ten
years previous. He pounds at the
peck-deck in his lounge room
wishing the garden hand were an opera
singer. Several repeats of the
pole-twists and his bowels grunt like a
sermon. A final glass of claret drops
him to his knees ashen faced. His
big bath steams plump now, full
as the Jordan river. The one bedroom
light burns on the lemon bush
which holds its globes of fruit like
a juggler stopped mid-trick.