The Confessional

Waiting in line for my turn

in Saturday confession,

Still young enough

To not conceive of why the young woman in the last pew

sobbed,

so piteously.

I stared and stared

at her hunched figure, shoulders heaving,

her quiet rasps obliterating the stillness.

By the time I entered

The dark pocket of the confessional

My curiosity could not be contained,

And even before Father Blackwell

had slid open the wooden panel between us,

I blurted it out, brazen.

Why is that lady so sad, Father?

His response was clipped, dismissive.

She has not been forgiven.

More importantly, he demanded,

What was it I needed forgiveness for this week passed?

When I emerged,

Chastened, reborn,

The woman had gone.

I never saw her again.

But I remember the child

I was that day,

The one who could not yet know

A grief so profound.

A heart so broken.

A life never

Bargained for.