For some reason she holds
three fingers up to her temple,
like a reincarnated Johnny Carson
conjouring his magnificent Carnac
and proclaims
the Sacred Heart 
is making a come back

I’m reluctant to engage this young lady,
everyone in the coffee house 
looks expectantly at us.
I clear my throat and ask if she would
sit with me at my table

In my belief I am simple,
a pantheistic agonistic atheist:
1.  everything is possible
2.  beyond the now nothing exists
3.  I don’t know
But still, I am smitten by the symbols
of my devout chidhood;
the trussed up body, nails and all
the bloody heart, its crown of thorns,
Michelangelo’s Pieta,
of which she reminds me,
a pure and simple mirage
of a virgin Mary

I go with the flow and pay for her pizza,
then she buys herself a bus
ticket to Chicago on my phone. 
She wants to see the new Pope’s video 
address to American  youth in White Sox
Stadium. I’m happy to oblige