Carolyn Arrives

written for Bill Albinson in memory of his mother

Saint Peter is amazed
as Carolyn strides through the gates of heaven
and tells him a joke
he’s never heard, he,
gatekeeper to paradise,
thought he’d heard it all, but

Carolyn has no time for chatting,
as purposeful as her morning walks,
dressed in her finest with the legs of a 19-year-old,
the high chin of a baroness,
she enters the Great Cathedral,
counts off the columns
and settles in her pew,
her pew,

ol’ J. S. Bach approves her claim, nodding
from behind the organ,
spinning his fugues for a smiling God.