confession

how many years
since your last confession
the priest
asks me.
as I bend
in the darkened box.
too many I reply.
decades.
let's call it thirty.
so I round it off
to the nineteen seventies.
the sins,
like dirty snow
have been plowed to the side
of my
road.
does he need detail?
I spare him. I spare me.
the penance
is light, but the absolution
is mighty.