A former friend asked sarcastically

and with a tinge of meanness,

“Do you STILL feel guilty after All

these years?” Is the Pope Catholic?

Born to a Dutch Calvinist mother

and a Swedish Lutheran father he

embraces guilt like an Irish Catholic

mother who owns everything that

goes wrong in the lives of her twelve

children and then makes them feel

guilty about it. He owns guilt like a

Jewish mother whose children didn’t

become Ph.D.s. He pushes guilt around

his psyche like he used to push mortar

in wheelbarrows up plywood planks

in gusty cross winds between floors of

a new construction. Sisyphus has noth-

ing on him. Turns out the former friend

is a Swedish mother who knows a lot

about guilt and just inflicted it on him

and he accepted it like a Chocolate Lab

lowers his ears and accepts the harsh

voice of his master and pleads for for-

giveness even when his master was

just yelling at the T.V.  He thinks to him-

self, at least I keep it to myself, and

then he thinks, surely, there were

times, and, of course, feels guilty

about that which must have been

but which he can’t remember.