I CAN’T REMEMBER THE KIND NUNS—FIRST GRADE
Sister Agnes said
birth names were better,
at home I was Robbie, I was home-
sick in school,
she called me Roberta,
she called me “big baby”—
I refused to move in
from the end of the pew,
waiting under glare
of the Crucifixion
for my oldest sister to pass by
at Communion, Christ
on her tongue, just to touch
her dress, my holy cloth,
relic that could soothe me.
One day I ran away
from school, down a long
hall of doors closed.
Sun shining, first bridge was
walking distance, no plan after.
The man—
who stopped his car
in the middle of the bridge,
who offered a ride, a crying child,
whose car I climbed into,
a stranger, Mother said Never,
who drove to my startled home—
explained to Mother
he had children, too.
Next day I was back in class
with Sister Agnes, longing
for the kindness and safety
of a stranger.
I CAN’T REMEMBER THE KIND NUNS—FOURTH GRADE
The pacifier hung on a nail at the front of the room
like a pink threat, ominous, to us, as the Red Scare. You’ll suck
on it if you behave like children, Sister warned the first day
of fourth grade, and each day after.
Black-mark charts at the back of the room
held every student’s name—looked like art
from a distance—straight rivers of black waxy
Xs, long or middling or stubby lines, all character
drubbings for rubbing Sister the wrong way.
Daily she picked on Pamela, commanding her once to suck
on the pacifier, another day demanding she take off
the sweater she was wearing, then started, herself,
to pull it off, Pamela wriggling, stammering, Sister talking
over, tugging at the sleeves, Pamela cringing, contorting
to slip from Sister’s grip she could never slip from,
finally ending the tug-o’-war with a tortured shout:
I’m not wearing anything under!
Sister singled me out for whispering, ordered me to
the back of the room, to the black-mark chart, where—
my trembling body a shield from detection—I pressed
the crayon firmly over an existing X.
I CAN’T REMEMBER THE KIND NUNS—EIGHTH GRADE
Sister was angry with the boy—
something he said or did, or didn’t do or say,
something
worth a punishing hurt
to his outstretched hands.
Was it instinct or nerve,
his last-second action, jerking
back his hands from her falling anger,
the ruler crashing onto her glass-topped
desk, breaking in half and cracking
the glass?
I remember it like a silent movie—
no dialogue,
just a crescendo of music
as the actor in black takes
an innocent captive—
she dragged him into the hall by his arm,
slamming the door behind them, the rest
of us left to interpret the muffled sounds
of her fury.
His vacant desk consumed all air in the room
that afternoon and the next day and next, until
it occurred to us the boy had vanished,
the crack of his rebellion still reverberating.
I CAN’T REMEMBER THE KIND NUNS—AGE 38
Sister T, the nun with a mustache, I wrote in the newspaper—
I presumed she was dead—memories of high school—
written with humor—
I was 38—
ancient, she’d seemed when she taught us—classmates—
a few—had already passed—
She caught me in bed on Saturday morning, shortly after
my column was published.
“This is Sister T——–,” she announced, her voice
terrifying as a fire alarm.
“You mocked me,” she accused, “‘nun with a mustache.’”
“‘T’…isn’t a name…it’s—it’s a letter…a symbol,” I parried.
“That’s me,” she insisted.
“Who can say who…really…the T…could be anyone…
I can’t…it’s obvious…anonymous…” I said.
She swept aside my denials,
reaching through time, phone lines,
dragging me by my ear
to the principal’s office,
where she nailed me for my sins
with Shame’s sturdy hammer.
Robbie Curry is a poet and a former journalist. Her poetry has been published in the Bacopa Literary Journal. She was a participant in the Palm Beach Poetry Festival (2016), won first place in the ghazal contest category from the Florida State Poet’s Association, received a $5,000 artist’s grant from the State of Florida, and is a member of the long-running Third Thursday Poetry Group in Gainesville, Florida.
