Dear Sister Agnes,

          Can I still call you

                    Emily? Not long after

we last saw each other, I too changed

          my name. Dropped T.J.

                    to take on my given name.

Dropped discerning the priesthood,

          reading my morning scripture

                    and praying the rosary

each night by my bedside,

          to discern dick. My life either way

                    would be spent

on my knees. I’m writing  you now

          after all this time

                    because you also understand

some lines can’t be uncrossed. Because

          that dark buzzed gym

                    where I kissed

your shoulder is the last artifact

          from before

                    I still keep.

And because I wonder if, for you,

          too, Sister, the past

                    now lies parallel

beside you in furrowed rows.

          There are times, the sun

                    gutting the spines

of redwoods, pooling on a heap

          of ash-laced dirt, yes,

                    or holding my husband

on his worst days

          when none of it survives,

                    when it seems possible

to have never had a youth,

          to have emerged fully formed,

                    purely this. I don’t

turn back often, though I did

          go to your convent once

                    to look for your face

among the wimples. A seagull

          wandered in, its screeches

                    flanking the altar.

The marbled saints

          all leered. I left a quarter

                    in the donation box,

but lit no candles, said no

          intentions. I didn’t know

                    which of us

to pray for. And in that dotted light,

          the saints’ expressions

                    all changed. Teej

you used to call me.