Without Priests or Robes

Without Priests or Robes
by
Julie Eger



I remember a time when

Mama moved the furniture

to give us more room

as Dick Rodgers, Fritz Willfarht

and the rest of the players

would come in on WLUK

TV Station out of Green Bay

at 10:00 on Sunday mornings

while other kids were sitting in cars,

mothers slicking back hair with spit,

straightening collars, and scolding them

to stand up straight as they walked to their pews.

Mama cranked the volume on the TV

and with hands together, chins up,

shoulders locked, right foot back,

back together back, counting

one-uh-two, one-uh-two,

we would polka all our cares away

and before Tuba Dan

put down his bouncing tuba,

without priests or robes,

without altars or smoke,

all my sins were forgiven.

Child In Church

Child In Church

by David Lee Garrison


The sanctuary sloped down
to the altar. I saw
a field of heads and then
the haloed head of Jesus
kneeling at Gethsemane.
Pews were the dark red
of his blood;the organ swell
was his breath and heartbeat;
the cross, his skeleton.
We whispered the letter "s"-
forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those
who trespass against us-
as if we knew one letter
of the sacred alphabet,
one sound we chanted,
calling to the others.