The Spring days in Lent
when Minnesota windows were finally opened
again when the wind mixed with the varnish of a Catholic
school wood floor, we felt the hope of a week ending.
Those nights, everyone filled the school gym to eat fish;
it was supposedly a penance.
A man named Fred and his wife Leticia sat at the cake table;
we would dart here and there to collect plates and styrofoam
cups with medicine tasting punch no one finished. Now,
decades later, my mom texts me each Friday of Lent the list of who
she saw. Old teachers, parents of classmates,
that old couple who sat in front of us in Church for a thousand years,
Bonnie Lou who once got bit by a dog,
and she gives me updates on them all—
who has cancer, who is aging, who is pretending they aren’t aging
who remembers all of us by name.
A penance brings them together
and mine is not being there
feeling from afar the longing to share
once again and forever a banquet.
Artist’s Statement
I wrote this a number of years ago. I was probably homesick; it was Lent and where I was living at the time, there weren’t fish fries. I’ve always loved a good parish fish fry. Much of my writing, especially poetry, is inspired by people. Their routines, their quirks, their steadiness, their craziness. The people who made up these fish fries at my home parish when I was young, like Fred and Leticia, were always there. I wanted to honor them. I think I was surprised myself by how the poem ended, but it is fitting. I do miss all of those people, and I do believe we will all share a banquet together again, and I think it’s beautiful and also a little comedic that heaven could be eating a meal with Fred and Leticia and Bonnie Lou and everyone else. That would be great.
Photo: 5chw4r7z