MIPOesias ~ ISSN 1543-6063 Volume 17 ~ Summer 2004

CATHOLIC SCHOOL RETABLOS

I stand at my locker, fifteen and bound in a white starched shirt, red acrylic wool vest and a gray gabardine uniform skirt with an obscene pleat straight down the front. I can see Sister Nulla sliding up the hall, Jesus on a giant wooden crucifix hanging from her neck, his nailed feet bouncing against her hidden breasts. Sister’s thin, translucent fingers are interlaced, hands cupped right below Jesus as if she’s about to give him a boost up to Heaven, the way my father gave me a boost out of the pool at the YMCA, where the water was always murky and green like Sister Nulla’s eyes.


In Algebra class, Sister Catherine tries to get our attention by whipping the blackboard with her pointing stick. Her face shrivels, eyes bug out of their slots as she paces back and forth, screaming, picking out students to expel to the hall as chalk dust hovers in the air around her. Formulas blur. Dust floats, sparkles, settles on Sister’s forehead like ash.


At lunch, while our classmates gather at the sub shop down the street, Lisa and I sit alone on the grass in Senior Square in front of the white statue of the Virgin Mary and eat sunflower seeds making sure to save a handful to bury at her feet. We want something to grow. Spread across the concrete. Burst from the cracks like sunrise.


The infirmary fills up faster than confession during Easter. Girls fake fainting to escape the 14 stations of the cross, the claustrophobic chapel, the kneeling and standing and sitting and kneeling—hours of it— the monotone chanting, those carved wood scenes of Jesus falling, falling, falling and Father in his purple robe, the stained glass behind him glowing like fire. By station 5, the girl’s thighs begin to twitch. Not from the thought of eternal damnation, but from the looks the boys give as they wait for the girls to collapse, one by one, plaid skirts rising, rising, rising.


When the school gym is vandalized right before Christmas, Sister Hortencia howls, runs through the brick courtyard to the principle’s office and leaves the gym doors wide open. A gust of stink like the pier hits us. Noses pinched we peek in. See silver fish the size of footballs scattered across the red floor, piled atop the gold painted warrior, dangling from the basketball hoops, hundreds of them, glimmering beneath the streams of morning sun like a miracle.


Surprise confession. I’m called out of class to see Father Campion. He sits behind his giant oak desk, his face bloated and pink from too much wine. The walls are covered with posters of Mexican bullfights, black beasts in tortured positions, their flesh pierced and bleeding, like Jesus on the cross, who shares the walls with the bulls and matadors. And I wonder about Father, his need to display all this unnecessary sacrifice and how matador means killer in Spanish. Father wants me to confess. Can’t think of anything I’m sorry for so I lie, tell him I sometimes imagine stabbing my mother in the neck with her knitting needles. I receive my penance. Say my Hail Mary’s in a flash. Get back to art class where I learn perspective, try to capture shadow and light.

© Teresa Carrion 2004. All rights reserved.

Portrait of Teresa Carrion © Henry Denander 2004. All rights reserved.

Poetry
Michael Rothenberg
Diane Thiel
Nick Carbo
Mia Leonin
Michael Hettich
Campbell McGrath
Kelle Groom
Steve Kronen
Kemel Zaldivar
Pris Campbell
Michael-Earle Carlton
George Murphy
Howard Camner
Geoffrey Philp
Terri Carrion
Nancy Knutson
Jonathan Rose
Barbra Nightingale
Ian Krieger
James Brock
Amy Serrano Zorrilla
Denise Duhamel
Virgil Suarez
Micro-Fiction & Shorts
Terri Carrion
Diane Thiel
Artists
Artist Intro
Ivonne Bess
Diego Quiros
John Canning
Jeff Filipski
Arlene Magloire
Cassandra Gordon-Harris
Holly Picano
TRES
Mia Leonin
Terri Carrion
Richard Blanco
Interviews
Campbell McGrath
Previous Volume
Volume 16
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