The revered reverends and pious priests,

bishops and cardinals

assume vows of faithfulness,

chastity, humility and poverty

and after years of puffed-up pride

at the cleverness of their

publicly presented propriety

bite the dust and vanish in

posterity

to somewhere else’s

and someone else’s

everlasting, eternal ignominy

or,

if they are lucky,

blessed forgetfulness

in history’s

memory.