She said that she wasn’t amused but I believe that Queen Victoria rather enjoyed the camel ride. ‘It gets cold at night’, I called up to her, ‘out here in the desert. But the stars come out and it looks splendid’.

I was merely making conversation, of course. Her little legs were astride the beast. It must have been very hot for her, wearing all that mourning attire, that dress and all of those petticoats, but she was stoic.

The office of Squirrel Recruitment had the faint, sweet smell of damp documents and quiet despair. A single, wilted fern drooped in a corner, a silent testament to forgotten ambitions. Behind a desk sat Kafkett, a man whose suit had the bewildered look of something that had been through a car wash.

Across from him sat Normalson, a man so thoroughly beige he risked blending into the walls. Normalson clutched his CV like a holy text.

Why was I responsible for the Bishop’s funeral? Sure, I’d been attached to the diocesan office for a couple of years, but only because Bishop Pfister had wanted to, in his words, “keep an eye on me.”

Shortly after my ordination, he said to me, “You’re a real degenerate, you know, of course.”

What could I say? I nodded.

Between some paths where hikers crossed,
I was approached and iced by Frost.

You are my squatters, my kneelers, my benders,
my bone on bone,
worn from eight decades of demand.
Hours of kneeling on a catholic bench,
kicking the ball on a dirt road,
times on my knees scrubbing parquet,
up and down filing and sorting charts.