By Sandra Kacher
I kneel among gilded Virgins and kindly Josephs
ready to receive the body of Christ.
A flat white circle sucks moisture from my mouth,
tongue probes for Jesus in the scraps
of wafer sticking to my palate.
Terrorized by Catechism tales—
the woman who caught the host in her handkerchief,
holy luck to tuck under her pillow,
only to scuttle back to church,
blood dripping from the white linen,
I look elsewhere for moisture in this dry world—
mouth open to snowflakes,
dew before sunrise,
rivulets trickling among boulders,
fog misting around cattails,
tears from my dying father’s face.
Copyright Kacher 2021
Sandra Kacher comes to writing poetry after years of hearing about the inner lives of hundreds of therapy clients. She brings the same compassion and sense of irony to her poetry as she brought to listening to hundreds of her clients. Touched by Mary Oliver and heartened by Billy Collins, she brings a heart for beauty and an ear for music to her writing. She hopes poetry shares the ways she is moved by nature, human life and all the flotsam that catches her eye. An older poet, she is shaped daily by intimations if mortality and most of her work is touched by loss—past or to come. Poetry keeps her open, fights off cynicism in a world that leaves her listless these days.
All work by Sandra Kacher
