If facing the paper, your thought is 'I am an artist', you have no clue what to do. If the concepts of your function are, 'I am a shape maker, an entertainer, an expressive symbol collector'...then you have an explicit road map. Edgar Whitney

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Ave Maria



Ave Maria

Our Lady Queen of Peace, New Jersey
Sunday Morning
1969

She is dressed in flowing blue robe. I sweat in an itchy white nylon
communion frock, feeling like a fraud.

Even at age six, I knew there was something wrong
with coveting Our Lady’s rhinestone crown.

Oh! how I wanted it, I imagined the weight
of it, how it would sparkle when I turned this way and that.

I plotted ways I could sneak out of my grandparent’s house,
dodging behind hedge and tree. Running the half a block

to the little church where, dressed as a miniature bride I first
received the wafer. It tasted of cardboard and went instantly limp.

I had a moment of panic when it became lacquered 
to the roof of my mouth and I couldn’t prise it loose with my tongue.

There was nothing I could do except wait miserably for it to dissolve,
wishing I owned that crown,  pretty sure I was going to hell.

Kids told me that holding the host too long in the mouth was satanic.
I realized years later it was probably made of cornstarch.

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