much worse things
my sister’s ashes are on hold in a pottery urn
now she’ll never tell if he came to her in the night
was it the same yellow light beneath the door
and did she turn into smoke fly up the chimney
while he held her still I would have understood
if she cried her story would be safe with me
Remembering Worldly Laura
Lined up for first confession, I totally forgot:
walking home with Laura from catechism class I’d laughed
at her dirty joke. For years, I’d thought I was
so innocent then. The laugh gives the lie.
Our first communion day, my long white stockings
kept sliding down around my knobby knees.
But what a swan Laura was, gliding to the rail
in her pale blond braid, the skin beneath
her eyes so transparent it looked bruised.
Elisabeth Murawski is the author of Heiress, Zorba’s Daughter, which won the May Swenson
Poetry Award, Moon and Mercury, and three chapbooks. Still Life with Timex won the Robert
Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize. A native of Chicago, she currently lives in Alexandria, VA.