Confessional Box

Abstract

Confessional Box Jennifer Martelli (bio) Burly men hoisted the saints on their shoulders and marched them through my town.Lucy, Anthony, Peter, Rocco, Padre Pio, the Madonna:saints paraded through the August streets, feathered in silvery teal bills,each bill, a prayer. Those in more pain taped bigger bills to cement robes.Once, a distant niece was dressed as an angel, hooked to a cable, hungover an ocean of hands. Once, my friend took a peace lily from churchstuck it in a glass jar on her yellow kitchen table. Cream stigm—comical, lumpy: an old-world penis. She taught me how to crochetone summer during the feasts. She said I needed to count, Make sure youfinger all your stitches & keep your loops loose so the hook goes through!My hands grew soft as the orange yarn let go its lanolin, the steelhook slippery. I crocheted a uterus, but not because I tried.Look, I said, L ook at the womb! It’s like an old holy woolen relic!She brewed strong black coffee in a tin pot. We talked about our sins. [End Page 27] Jennifer Martelli Jennifer Martelli’s collection, My Tarantella (Bordighera Press), was named a 2019 “Must Read” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. Her chapbook, After Bird, won Grey Book Press’s Open Reading. Jennifer Martelli received the Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant in Poetry and is co-poetry editor for Mom Egg Review. www.jennmartelli.com Copyright © 2019 University of Wisconsin Board of Regents