by Sharon A. Foley

It took two years to get permission
to see my father. I begin to imagine
my first words with him. Beautiful day

and he will answer, Did you see the light
ripple on the stone wall? But it rains
on my first visit. I say, I wish the rain

would stop. And he replies,
It always has. He’s wearing a blue johnny
my mother made from one of his old shirts.

There is a cross above his bed,
a big wooden one with metal Jesus,
a touch of red paint on the wounds.

Dad’s been carving oak into a bowl
he has rubbed with linseed oil.

My habit does not scrape his floor.
My breasts are bridled by a blue gamp.
I am Sister Mary Sharon now.

It’s against the rules but for him
I lift my veil to show
wisps of my hair.

I have come from the high-ceilinged cloister.
In this tiny room
he seems so small to me.

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Sharon A. Foley’s poems have or will soon appear in Paterson Literary Review, Speckled Trout Review, Solstice, South Florida Poetry Journal, and The Big Windows Review. She entered the Sisters of Mercy at age eighteen and lived with them as a nun for twenty-nine years. Ms. Foley is now a psychotherapist.