She knew how to be forgiven:
Filled to spilling over with the
holy spirit, she never missed those
all-day Sunday Masses on the Catholic channel,
Mass in person at the church. She was a total pro
at penitence.
Morphed to mother at fourteen to four small sisters and a brother,
she packed her brilliance into attic, became an empty
confessional. When we emerged from service,
went to Sunday dinner at King’s Table Buffet,
she waited till we left to use the bathroom,
then dumped
the table’s After-Eights into her best blue purse.
That first time when I emerged too soon,
pretended I saw nothing.
She took collection from another table’s
bowl to even out the emptiness, lips pursed.
I thought I had escaped, but then her notice crossed
the room, caught me as I tried to fix
my own reflection in a mirror, cheeks staining glass.
She would not meet my eyes,
just simpered, said I’ll pray for you
to lose those thighs before
you’re old enough to date.
My inheritance. Months after she
had passed, we unearthed her secret cache,
saw the way she had buffeted her heart
with candy in her drawers:
mints and chocolate kisses,
tootsie rolls rolled into girdles.
While her husband called her Sugar,
trapped inside her housewife life,
she minted hunger into currency,
pawned away her pain,
hairshirt nothing
but a mouth.
