Belief

I believe
in little girls in white lace veils shot in black and white
a dusty prayercard hidden next to an ultrasound photo in my dictionary
open-armed angels
Birthday letters scrawled from

A girl
all endless knees and elbows and bruises
who pummeled her pain into sneering girls in white uniforms
Until she found herself
In a little black box that promised to forgive

All the years until she was a woman
Who hid money under sofa cushions
Showing me her vulnerability in the moonlight under a creamy cloud of air
Whose raspy voice, escaping from a telephone,
scolded me for not studying my catechism
Who pretended that shifting portraits were a movie
While the sun streamed in

She could always make the earth stand still
Even when she stopped moving forever

I believe
in the face of innocence
who was afraid that the masks on the wall
might start to look like her

An angel
Who loved fried chicken
and whispered over a candlelight hymn that I had a pretty voice
and thought that I was a saint
but never saw her own perfection

Who covered notebooks with curving "a"s and circled "i"s
Who mixed life with metaphor
Who could hear all the voices but her own
until she grabbed a knife from the kitchen
and silenced them 30 times.

I believe
in the first time I saw my father cry
in a funeral I wasn't allowed to attend
in my mother knowing why
in the howls of midnight trees
in the rock of tears in my stomach
of a letter sent out to sea on a raft of plywood and lilacs
and never seen again

I believe because of them.