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First Communion Day

An early morning bath.

 Sluiced and powdered,

hair in rags the night before.

And  don’t you DARE get them wet.

Shimmying on stiff white petticoats,

ankle socks smelling of sunlight,

new shoes for the occasion,

pearlised to match the missal and the rosary.

Then the crowning moment,

everybody holds their breath as the dress is lifted from it’s vinyl shroud.

Brought down from back bedroom wardrobe or back of door,

placed over the head of the tiny virgin.

Fitted, nimble fingers pulling pins and straightening lace

setting a veil atop a mess of ringlets

and for some, the common or the foreign,

tiny silver crosses depending from each ear.

Oohs and Ahhs from aunties, holding their handbags on their knee,

Taking out a lace edged hankie, remembering the times that they wore white.

Hoping this child would wear it twice.

 

 

 

This is a work in progress, posted to see if it's resonant to anyone other than me and whether you require a shared (catholic) heritage for it to stand. I also think it may want to be prose,(oh my god....Noooo) what do you think?

◄ I have seen Elvis in my mirror...

Claustrophobia ►

Comments

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Greg Freeman

Mon 8th Mar 2010 10:45

I liked this a lot, Rachel, especially the final line, which sums up the poem; and the juxtaposition of aunties, handbags, and hankies! Greg

Rachel Bond

Sun 7th Mar 2010 15:13

oo i like this but tell em your going to wear white every night just to pull all those perverts in search of a virgin...only an idiot would wear it twice. great poem. thanks for your comments on 'so poor the martyr of love' also.

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Emma Robinson

Sun 7th Mar 2010 15:00

Hi Rachel,
I think this is definitely worth carrying on with, it's so reminiscent of my own holy communion, it brought lots of memories back.The snippets of ideas/ information work really well for me, the poem works as if it's the child looking back on her experiences, she can only remember bits of what happened rather than a coherent narrative of the day! Great stuff!

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Rachel McGladdery

Sun 7th Mar 2010 14:15

Thanks Steve,
it's part of a much longer piece which deals with some of the religious stuff and a child's response to that but it's at the endless roll of toilet paper stage at the minute. I posted this to see if it was worth carrying on with....thanks to your comment, I bloomin well will....just need to get my headache cured and my editing head on!
Thanks again.
xxx

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Steve Regan

Sun 7th Mar 2010 13:35

I think it's very nice as a poem. It's weird to introduce Catholic kids to a concept as mind-blowing as Holy Common as young as is customary, but hey-ho, it sure gives a young life a sense of occasion, and your poem, even as a work-in-progress, evokes that. I'd like you develop it a bit to express some of the mystery of the day.

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