Lindsay Bernal
Winter 2023 | Poetry
Two Poems
Brief History of My Catholicism
Hotboxing in my K-car with Abby,
the star of my school, the whole state,
the Can of Worms interchange abuzz
above us, I was waiting for the bridge
in “Someone Saved My Life Tonight”
—in my own slump, not head-in-the-oven,
head-on-into-the-deep-end-of-the-river
serious but an obstacle nonetheless—
in the Wendy’s parking lot, all air piano
and virginal, my breasts barely breasts,
miles from what was happening
closer to home on the trestle over the canal:
their Olan Mills portraits on a loop on the local news.
In confession, I said I was jealous—they died
in each other’s arms in love—and Father O’Connor,
behind the curtain, demanded I take it back.
When I told him an old man
had exposed himself to me on the towpath
the priest asked why I was walking alone
without one of my brothers.
I remember feeding the ducks
as the stranger’s pants came down,
waving to the packet boat
named for another Rochester hero
who disappeared into the Genesee
after a failed dare—Sam Patch hadn’t meant
to die, he’d planned other jumps
from bridges higher than High Falls.
This isn’t a very good story.
Sir Elton sings his better, rewritten by Taupin
with the ridiculous Sugar Bear,
the assonantal i flooding the chorus.
Death’s, of course, clichéd, winged,
a whispering butterfly,
and maybe J + M are angels
free to fly, fly away, high away, bye-bye.
Nostalgia List
the dirty Potomac
over which we’re held
inert due to a signal problem
schedule adjustment
the collective heat of us
late frustrated trapped
contagious yawning
one cough a cacophony
that doesn’t cause alarm
too-loud singing
someone brushing past
hurried harried
an unawareness of boundaries
bodies the sun the same
unremarkably setting rising
no one calling their friends their pod
eating a lavish meal out
what about necking
a not so public display that ends
before the elevator lifts us
into a glass-canopied
courtyard of orchids
the fountain the children wade in
barefoot hand-in-hand
I even miss bad allegorical art
that obscure canvas
in the museum mezzanine
stealth goddess
in a see-through peignoir
crystal ball
above her in midair
taunting or disciplining
the unclothed cherub
with wiry red curls
like my quarantined nephew’s
search words nude
landscape other
mother and child
evening ruins time
Lindsay Bernal is the author of What It Doesn't Have to Do With (University of Georgia Press, 2018), winner of the National Poetry Series. Poems from her in-progress, second manuscript have appeared in Full Bleed, the Georgia Review, New England Review, Oversound, Poem-a-Day, and other journals. She coordinates the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Maryland.