All Comments on 'Suffer the Children to Come Unto Me'

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Point taken on the Rolaids, Desejo and Angeline:

"Louise, go get a Kleenex for your head,"

the omnipresent Sister Clemence said,

who otherwise gave to seventh grade girls

two bobby pins each for their chapel veils.

"So maybe next time you'll remember yours.

Another example, listen up girls,

of sloth which is what forgetfulness is,

"and don't forget to button up your blouse."

The tissue felt like a hair shirt to Lou

inside the booth with just one bobby pin

when Lou rubbed herself a second or two

to think of something to say about sin.

where I spent many a Saturday morning sitting on the steps of St. Anthony's church on Chambers Street while my friends went to confession. I think I agree with Desejo that Rolaids seems odd here--not so much in the context of a pre-confession nervous stomach--but that it seems odd for a young woman to be taking it. Maybe I'm envisioning her as too young. But I'll forgive that for the nun's name and the line about the bobby pins, which seem so evocative of time and place to me.

I like the subtle rhyme. As usual, very evocative - reading it once one gets a sense of the event, twice and all the details start to fill in. That said, the Rolaids line does not work for me at all. The Kleenex reference is fine, and I like the repetition of that. But the Rolaids? I am not sure if it's just that I find it unrealistic, or awkward, or unnecessary. Actually. Maybe that is the point?