Sacrament: Two

This is what I remember about Comunion
the white dress
that my mother made,
the veil with the pearl that hung on my forehead
like the nameless princess in the Neverending Story.

I studied really hard,
my mother drilled me
every night on my
Ave Marias and Padre Nuestros
and even the sign of the cross-
which incidentally is longer in Spanish.

It was May- that's comunion season-
cloudy, winds whipping my dress around
so that in the pictures I look
like a jellyfish breathing.

I had to fast and Ruben drank his
licuado extra slow to torture me.
And when I took into my mouth
the flesh of the Lord
he tasted like paper.
I let him dissolve on
my tongue
because you're not supposed to
chew God with your teeth.
When he was soggy as a Kleenex
I swallowed and walked out
Glowing,
Jesus was in my belly.

Sacrament: One

I can't remember my ow baptism
so I'll write about my Godson's
that's right, I'm a nina-
that's short for Madrina,
little mother
lesser mother,
small, somehow.

This means that should Matilde and Chavo
dissapear into the Ether, into Oblivion,
Emmanuel would live with us,
his two crazy American aunts.

My sister and I are twins in this
we go to the workshops
in the Sacred Heart chapel
Sister Reina, her name meaning Queen,
explains the pascal mystery,
Life, Death, and Resurrection
My little sister draws a quick breath
and we exchange those looks
sisters have,
we already feel eternal.
In the family home in Mexicali
we dress Emmanuel's squirming body,
he is still new at this living
and doesn't even know he is in a dress.

He is the quietest child in the church,
asleep while the other children scream
itchy in white tulle and afraid of the font,
The priest lights and then extinguishes the Pascal candle,
it will be put away to use at our funerals-
I think the children realize this
and weep openly.

Because that is the deal, see, the mustard seed,
the grain of wheat,
the dying that is for certain,
that is inevitable and begins the day of your first breath

PJ Harvey is Poetry

Last night I saw PJ Harvey at the Orpheum. Our seats were way up high, and I kept thinking I was at the Wiltern. Elated at the thought of being out on a school night, I dank vodka with about a baby-dropper's worth of cranberry juice. You can guess how that went- I sobbed through her piano set and clapped a beat to her electric set. My poor row-mates. The stage was like a person's living room: two chairs with furry throws, christmas lights on the upright piano and the two amps. Nothing else, and no one else except Ian, a long haired guy from England (long haired guy from the United Kingdom) who would hand her guitar or collect it from her. Polly, who is an emaciated woman, wore a Gibson Girl-sleeved white gown with giant cursive either stitched or painted on-it was hard to tell from our seats and my inebriated state. I couldn't see her hairdo well, but Danita said it wasn't cute, which I forgive. I like my guitar-heroines stylishly disheviled.

Funny, in all those years of rockin' out to her, I never realized how beautiful her voice actually is behind all the fuzz and feedback and screeching. Here, with only a piano to frame hr voice, she sounded...ethereal. She made me feel the way Tori Amos used to make me feel during her "just me and my piano" days, the days of Sister Janet and Honey. She made me feel like darkeness is beautiful, and magic completely possible.

P.S.
I came to work hung over ;)