some holy family secrets

(for LP, again)

From car lot and horizon, with the odd staid child in arm

and straight to the red crepe blinds of a second home

was how she arrived--

a cute pouty girl I saw in her mom's June- hems, that is,

whose classroom came with mirror and comb,

who'd sensed, of all things , the diamond halls were haunted--

yes, and to prove it had found no shoot of light anywhere

in the church's nave the day her kids viewed a dead pastor,

right after recess, and even said some stations

"The church can't be both a tomb and comfy aisles, can it?"

she'd said later; "ha, we're all living in a bubble",

and even, I replied, the red-knuckled kids we saw on our way out

(in a glassy-eyed rage!) racing down two floors

By now the fresh teacher bloom had faded, Sears bag in hand,

heels clicking through concrete doors