PROLOUGE- a bracelet of saints

Yesterday on a subway in Buenos Aries, a ratty haired girl placed a plastic bracelet on my knee. A gift i thought, till her extended palm implored otherwise. Disgruntled, I parted with two pesos, then while toying with the trinket I saw that upon its twelve beads were painted diminutive portraits. Saints? I might have guessed: doe eyed Christ with incandescent heart blazing from chest or Santa Maria, lascivious babe groping at her breast. But no rather than resembling these supernatural super stars- Catholicisms ubiquitous Shlebs, they appeared to be a pantheon of twelve of my own dearly departed. Faces familiar and of instant comfort. For brevity’s sake I will draw attention to two of the Saints depicted on the bracelet as it is these two, I am certain will contribute significantly toward my journey ahead. Firsly I find Saint Ricardo- a vagabond with his melancholy Accordion, whose sultry song oozes like the juice from teeth torn mangoes, re uniting errant lovers in demeted San Telmo Tangoes. Here in the shadows of these cobbled streets, tipping hat at two pensioners ambling by. So begins his Buenos Aries lament, peddling fingers, meddling keys and through hearing aids they how felt it hummmmmm, for soon they had discarded walkers, locking limbs, lips-the remains of their withered loins. Snt Ricardo relieving the nostalgic niggle from porous bones, inciting cloudless skies into torrential catharsis. I might have guessed you’d follow me here, or perhaps it is i who has followed you? And finally Santa Rosalind (Sister Sunshine to some) who despite her age of seventy years, hauls me over her shoulder with the might of twenty Saint Christophers. Depicted on my bracelet with dangling fag and naughty smirk, fish net stocking- all push up perk. Saint of curiosity and misadventure. (Ware you Virgin Mare, ware you). No death did not my Saints apart, but united them- here- braced on wrist and bound in heart. Onward, upward, into the unknown. Solitary, perhaps even a little uncertain but certainly never alone.