Whatever seam you worked on,
there were always needles,
and the almost invisible
threads that clung to you
as you guided the cloth
with your small fingers,
cramming wool, silk, cotton,
under the jaws of the power machine,
another, another, another,
until your wrists ached
and at the end of the day
your knees would not unbend.
This is goodbye.
You lie in St. Dominic’s Church,
with candles, incense, gilt,
where Father Mark embraced you,
and Sister Agnes told you the Inquisition
was only a few bad priests,
benedictam, adscriptam, ratam, rationabilem,
where all you could have known
was held at bay
by all that you believed.
Your heart lies like an apple
in the center of the City of the Angels.
Per omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen.
poems have appeared in North American Review, Nimrod, Rattle, Slant, American Journal of Poetry, Tar River Poetry, and many other journals and anthologies. Her fifth book, What’s Left Over, was published in 2022. She likes the light on November afternoons, the music of Stravinsky, the smell of the ocean. She hates pretense, fundamentalism, and sauerkraut.
