On Holy Saturday

for Ahmie, my great-aunt

By the time my great-aunt showed up with
Little Golden Books fresh from the supermarket
for my sister and me, my parents’ fight was over

but my father was still down in the basement
running his table saw and shouting Oh, SHIT
between its violent complaints. Don’t ever

say that, said Ahmie to me. Bad men in prison
say that.And she gave us the books, which opened
stiffly because they were so new. Oh, God, not

again, my mother said. They’ll never learn
to read if you keep buying them that garbage!
My father said FUCK! and turned on a drill.

My aunt was sad then, and not because she was
a widow. There’s a pall hanging over this house,
she said and all at once I was frightened and sure

she meant Poll Parrot, who sold children’s shoes
on TV but was worse than any monster because of his
terrible, nasal voice. I wondered where Poll was

and suddenly understood how he could be invisible.
Jesus Christ was already dead but yet unrisen.
A black-clad priest on educational TV finished his

show about the Shroud of Turin: mummy wrappings!
I’d eat myself sick on candy the next day. Now I was
just waiting. There was a pall, a shroud, a nasty

silence worse than curses. But the sun wouldn’t
stop and the neighbor’s cherry tree was a pink
waterfall, weeping and weeping and weeping.









Christine Potter still lives in that very old house on the creek with her husband and two spoiled pussycats. She's still DJing free form rock and roll (Area24radio.com at 4 PM EST Thursdays). Her new collection of poetry, Sheltering In Place, will be published in spring of 2013 on Cherry Grove Collections (WordTech). Life is good.