Photo by Nivenn Lanos
The Heart Burns
Barb Ristine
My husband texts Notre Dame is burning and I switch to the news, see the hungry flames reaching up to devour the spires and my heart stutters. I was there one–no, two–years ago, spinning on that brass marker, making a wish to return, but I haven’t, and outside the cathedral an elderly man kneels and a woman joins him, then another and another and another, until hundreds are praying. Someone holds up a rosary, and I am in my itchy First Communion dress my aunt made from my mother’s wedding gown, but it’s ivory, it's supposed to be white, all the other girls are sparkling gleaming white and my veil doesn’t even match my stupid ugly dress and I want to disappear into the stone floor but I’m kneeling with all the other girls and then the priest places the Communion wafer in my mouth and oh God I want to chew, but Sister said that was wicked, you’d be chewing on Baby Jesus and you’ll go to Hell, so I wait and wait for it to dissolve and it tastes like cardboard but it’s Holy so it can’t be like cardboard can it, and the announcer says the spires have collapsed.
Barb Ristine
My husband texts Notre Dame is burning and I switch to the news, see the hungry flames reaching up to devour the spires and my heart stutters. I was there one–no, two–years ago, spinning on that brass marker, making a wish to return, but I haven’t, and outside the cathedral an elderly man kneels and a woman joins him, then another and another and another, until hundreds are praying. Someone holds up a rosary, and I am in my itchy First Communion dress my aunt made from my mother’s wedding gown, but it’s ivory, it's supposed to be white, all the other girls are sparkling gleaming white and my veil doesn’t even match my stupid ugly dress and I want to disappear into the stone floor but I’m kneeling with all the other girls and then the priest places the Communion wafer in my mouth and oh God I want to chew, but Sister said that was wicked, you’d be chewing on Baby Jesus and you’ll go to Hell, so I wait and wait for it to dissolve and it tastes like cardboard but it’s Holy so it can’t be like cardboard can it, and the announcer says the spires have collapsed.