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.
Source: Poetry (June 2025)