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Sure, I hid all my
saints in the hardwood.

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Holy cards slipped under
the loose ones like that.

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And when George and Sal would
pluck the fluff from a Q-tip

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to jimmy the lock, it
was their room too,

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but it was my dad's furniture.

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They'd say, I'm going
to wring your neck Mr,

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like mom did before
they burst in

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to pelt me with walnuts,
sometimes with fists.

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And I just sit there like
some sack of potatoes

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on the edge of the bed.

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Those years, my dad was
always napping or flinging

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all his hard won
dough on the track.

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I heard uncle Freddie say that.

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And I couldn't help but
imagine aluminum hoof

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after aluminum hoof glinting
like the jagged tops

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of soup cans in
the sun, kneading

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little moons of dirt and dough.

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He was trying to
win back our car.

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I was fighting to
stay still for them,

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but my big toe kept
tapping, that plank

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hollering inside my own head.

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Dominic, Mary, Tony,
Francis, Monica, Jude.

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I'd run clean through
the whole roster.

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I might have let out a
George, George, or Sal,

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If they got that gnarled
wooden spoon involved.

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But no, I never
said stop praying.

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Here's my toe, my undone
sock, the gloss on the wood,

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then the actual wood.

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Now the laminate and the
prayer poem, then the Saint.

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Not too far for a
boy's plea to travel.

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But if they heard me, they
never did help now, did they?

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