Megan Fernandes
Church Girls
I go for hymns and the Ave Maria.
I can’t resist the white blur
of choir capes or copper
pipes making the crucifix
shudder. Jesus is shuddering
up there, looking out at
the central aisle
of his church, tubular
like the fuselage
of an airplane.
I sing along. I stay
because years of Catholic school
have stapled me to wooden benches
by the gravitas of nuns.
But I am a good sinner.
Yes. There is a club
where we mourn
the angels
and the way the sky dopes
in November, grey and chill.
We aren’t afraid anymore.
Not of sacrilege nor the carcass
building the country.
In church, there are no nations
just bloodshed.
I admit that Gabriel
was always my favorite.
His first appearance, a vision of terror.
And poor Daniel, his receiver
bedridden for days.
Megan Fernandes is a poet and academic. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The New Yorker, Tin House, Ploughshares, Guernica, The Common, The Adroit Journal, among many others. Her second book of poetry, Good Boys, is forthcoming with Tin House Books in January 2020. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Lafayette College and lives in New York City. www.meganfernandes.com
Return to July 2019 Edition
I go for hymns and the Ave Maria.
I can’t resist the white blur
of choir capes or copper
pipes making the crucifix
shudder. Jesus is shuddering
up there, looking out at
the central aisle
of his church, tubular
like the fuselage
of an airplane.
I sing along. I stay
because years of Catholic school
have stapled me to wooden benches
by the gravitas of nuns.
But I am a good sinner.
Yes. There is a club
where we mourn
the angels
and the way the sky dopes
in November, grey and chill.
We aren’t afraid anymore.
Not of sacrilege nor the carcass
building the country.
In church, there are no nations
just bloodshed.
I admit that Gabriel
was always my favorite.
His first appearance, a vision of terror.
And poor Daniel, his receiver
bedridden for days.
Megan Fernandes is a poet and academic. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The New Yorker, Tin House, Ploughshares, Guernica, The Common, The Adroit Journal, among many others. Her second book of poetry, Good Boys, is forthcoming with Tin House Books in January 2020. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Lafayette College and lives in New York City. www.meganfernandes.com
Return to July 2019 Edition