• Home
  • Blog
  • Current
  • Archives
  • Shop
  • Donate
  • Subscribe
  • Contests
  • About
    • Contact
    • Submit
    • Media Kit
    • Resources
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Facebook

DappledThings.org

A quarterly journal of ideas, art, and faith

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Project Rachel

Dappled Things

Amanda Nowakowski

The mass was for us and the
dead that never left us. We were
seated in the radiating chapels
near the altar and didn’t look

at each other. The cardinal processed
the nave with his army of bishops,
priests, and the local deacon. The dead
hadn’t made it past the day we lay

on the tables and stared at pictures
on the ceiling. Mine were of fawns
in a clearing. They looked toward
woods. A volunteer had briefed me

in the waiting room but I thought
I was dying. Once, after a wedding,
I’d almost told my mom the truth. It was
in a storm outside Nashville. We’d gone

to a State Park where the bride
stood in a cobblestone ring. Her
dress barely hit her ankles. The storm
held off until she and her husband left

with the remaining champagne. I
was only half gone so my insides
were fighting the attack of ants and other
prickly things. On the way home I cried

because I needed a drink. The oily
truth of what I had done rushed
to my throat then retreated to its
vicious knowing. Twenty years later

I sat at the mass for those
who’d begged on the
table for forgiveness for
what we had done, and what

we had failed to do, and what
I’d have to do again, given the
ants, and the alcohol, and the men,
and the muteness of being sixteen.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
DT Subscribe

Filed Under: Easter 2014, Poetry

Mary, Queen of Angels 2020

Purchase Featuring nonfiction from Joshua Hren, fiction from Jennifer Marie Donahue and Rob Davidson and the winners and honorees of the Bakhita Prize in Visual Arts.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Newsletter

Sign up to receive the latest news from Dappled Things.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Have you enjoyed our content online or in print during the past year?

Dappled Things needs the support of its readers over and above the cost of subscriptions in order to continue its work.

Help us share the riches of Catholic art and literature with our impoverished culture by donating to Dappled Things.

Archives

Home
Blog
Current
Shop
Subscribe
About

Copyright © 2021 Dappled Things · Staff Forum · Log in

Graphics by Dominic Heisdorf · Website by Up to Speed

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.