A Drop of Holy Water

My eyes don’t often see details

Like they did

When I was a child,

Catching a blue tailed lizard,

Who ran away from me

On its tiny legs,

Leaving behind

Its shimmering blue tail

Wiggling in my hand.

My eyes don’t see funerals

Like they did

When I was a child.

When I was six

The priest prayed out loud,

While my dad, my mom, and many people

Who I didn’t know

Cried, and wiped their noses

With white handkerchiefs

They pulled from their purses and pockets.

I had mine in my front pants pocket.

I fiddled with it while the priest prayed,

Asking God to forgive my sinner grandma.

Asking God to welcome her home.

I wondered what kind of sins

My grandma could make.

I wondered if grandma would wake up.

She was asleep in the coffin

When I saw her the night before.

Mom told me Grandma wouldn’t wake up.

Grandma was dead.

The priest stepped down from the sanctuary,

Wearing his green vestments,

Praying, and sprinkling Holy water

Onto my grandma’s shiny metal coffin,

And sprinkling the congregation

Of grandma’s family and friends.

A few cold drops rained on me

And onto my glossy polished shoes.

Some spattered on my aunt Lourdes.

But one of those

Holy water sprinkles

Landed on top of her nose,

Rolled to the tip,

And hung there, as if watching

The funeral instead of falling off.

My aunt’s eyes we closed

In solemn prayer,

As I mine should have been.

  

I reached up,

Took my aunt’s hand

To tell her.

But she put her finger to her lips

And shushed me

Without opening her eyes.

I kept my gaze on the that silver drop and

Wondered how long

It would stay there.

I wondered how long

We would stay in the church,

And if the sprinkle would fall when we left.

The priest paraded the altar boys,

And the men who pushed grandma’s coffin

Down the aisle, out of the church.

My aunt took my hand and

We followed the crying ladies

With their black dresses wiggling back and forth.

I thought about the blue tailed lizard,

It’s tail having wiggled

in my hand.

My aunt pulled me forward

So I could watch the men

Slide Grandma’s shiny coffin

Into the long black hearse.

I looked up at my aunt Lourdes

And watched that silver sprinkle

Still hanging onto my aunt’s nose.