Easter 1961

by Nancy Scott

St. Anthony’s was too hot

with all those holiday bodies

breathing out secret sins–

the ones not atoned since Christmas.

Communion meant no

Easter candy or breakfast

till after.

 

The pew spun

and I sank into 8-year-old dreams

of chocolate peanut-butter.

I revived to my mother’s whisper,

“Don’t worry.

She does this often.”

But we left before dipped wafers.

 

Still pale, I worried the slow

walk home till

I had to ask,

“I can eat Easter candy

now, can’t I?”

Nancy Scott, Easton, PA, is a blind essayist and poet.  Her over 600 bylines have appeared in magazines, literary journals, anthologies and newspapers, and as audio commentaries. An essayist and poet, she has published three chapbooks. She won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest. Recent work appears in Breath and Shadow, Contemporary Haibun Online, and Stone Voices.poetry