Years later, nothing inside the church has changed. Not the dusty light, not the white feet of the statues or the boys in their pale smocks kneeling before the candles. Not the cool basement, the paper plates of donuts set out by the coffee urns. Not the bathroom with its stall doors open on a row of immaculate toilets, blue water in the bowls, a small wrapped soap on each sink. Forever the two girls leaning against the wall in the deep quiet, sharing a lipsticked Salem and watching themselves in the mirror, forever the priest nodding in the confessional, closing and opening and closing his small window. Always my father moving down the rows of bored, sonorous voices, passing the long-handled basket, my mother with his handkerchief pinned over her hair. Always, too, his coffin before the altar, my brother stammering a eulogy, the long line of parked cars spattered with snow. Always this brief moment when the candles shudder, then resume, and the girl holding the cigarette peers more closely into the mirror, startled for an instant at how old, how much like a woman it makes her look.© Kim Addonizio
from The Philosopher's Club (BOA Editions, 1994)