Justin Lacour

Gaudete Sunday

May this please You in some small way:

I have dragged myself and three young children

once again to ten-thirty mass.

My kids squirm in the pew,

old people get up and move, and Lord,

I feel I’m just waking up

from a great darkness, so now,

I want to be a father forever,

want to be with my wife,

even in the boredom of stories we already know,

and all the trouble making new stories.

I will no longer treat boredom as a problem to solve, no,

let me sit on this hard bench,

and stand when others stand,

and sing for the bread I by no means deserve.

The hour will come when You ask Do you

love me? And what will I say?

I do love You, sporadically and not well,

but I do love You.

I wish there were tears, tears, and screams,

and groveling and more tears.

I’d know I really mean it this time.

Justin Lacour lives in New Orleans with his wife and three children, and edits Trampoline: A Journal of Poetry. He is the author of Hulk Church (Belle Point Press 2023).