THE SUMMER OF HER NOVITIATE
When boils plagued my scalp, one no sooner lanced
than another swelling with viscous pus, and she,
not yet a nun, no longer adolescent, came
to inhabit her sister's house - summer
job and never-ending parties, final
fling with the world before her marriage vow
to God. Instead of falling in love with her,
in cut-off shorts and sleeveless tops and braids,
between wild transcendent blacklight dances,
we walked by the tangled Wissahicken reading the lives
of saints, in pamphlets provided by the convent,
eschewing the ones she felt too flashy, like both
Theresas and John of the Cross. At summer's end
we almost kissed but didn't, burning for a life rejected.
Leonard Kress
If you've any comments on his poems, Leonard Kress
would be pleased to hear from you.
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