INSIDE OUTSIDE

Masked under matching dresses,
layers of velvet and tulle.
Three girls in a row
eyes fixed forward.
Remember,
God loved the world – so don’t
fidget and put a
run in your stockings.

I sat in the pew.
Clicking heals together,
playing Hangman,
crinkling candy wrappers.
Until my father looked down from the pulpit.
Jesus with the kind eyes, the only son
staring behind him.
The two of them, a moral force
with carefully crafted beards.

If the world ended today Elise
would you want God to see you in jeans?
What if I believe in sweatpants,
disheveled hair and
dirt under my fingernails,
my soul?
Does my penance, my tithes, my obedience
not count?

I did not perish in the pool.
Didn’t even discover Jesus.
Though I encountered bats
during hide and seek,
disturbing their anointed slumber.
I would have fed them the body of Christ;
but I ate the last of the Wonderbread.


John, Paul …. George & Ringo?
Two out of four isn’t bad.
I memorized verses for stickers.
I forget most of the words; I remember the stickers.

Bows in hair, socks cuffed,
clean underwear will lead you into everlasting life.

~Elise Renz