- Elastic in her veil squeezes her head, the tulle scratches,
- stockings crawl foreignly over her spindly legs.
- She hopes that Sister Eulalia will click the cricket soon
- so she can stand and the garter belt buttons will
- stop digging the backs of her bony thighs.
- She looks up at Our Lady smiling down and asks,
- "How do women wear these things?"
- Growing up just may be a terrible idea.
- It's not their Father Ryan on the altar,
- it's the bishop himself so there is no telling
- what comes next but soon, soon, she needs to know
- whether to follow the clicker to the communion rail
- or to stay seated here, alone, on the buttons,
- while her catechism classmates get confirmed,
- a public humiliation to her mother
- in front of all the neighbors she has brought
- to watch her daughter's debut as a grownup Catholic.
- But if she goes up there with the class,
- she's also going to hell, unless of course
- she can convince the Blessed Virgin Mary
- to talk God out of it.
- They should have had confessions this morning.
- Yesterday was just too long ago.
- She'd had a day's worth of sinful thoughts since then.
- But there's a war on, you know.
- Zeroes could be leaving their carrier
- just over the Pacific horizon
- even as she waits here, in this pew,
- talking to the Virgin.
- A direct hit on the church, next time
- she steps out of the confessional,
- shiny clean, ready for heaven—
- she doubts seriously there's any other way
- she'll ever make it, no matter how well
- the BVM may present her case.
