By Annette Friend (Del Mar, CA)
Daffodils, ridiculous, happy flowers with
small pinched faces in yellow or orange
gaze innocently at the world haloed
by petals like the yellow habits of nuns.
A day off first grade, I was dusting wine bottles
in Pop’s liquor store when black-cloaked nuns
with pinched white faces and fleshy foreheads
pressed into white bands shuffled into Pop’s store.
The bells over the door chimed their welcome,
but I didn’t see heaven, only over-sized
penguins with huge silver crosses blazing
like lightening across broad chests.
I remembered my mother’s warning
never to enter a church where nuns
might steal a Jewish child and
a story foraged from the forests
of Poland that told me of priests
inciting pogroms at Easter from
their pulpits, and I ran up the stairs
to Pop in the backroom, screaming,
“Nuns, Nuns, here in our store!”
Pop touched a finger to my lips,
held me close in his arms, said,
“They’re only here collecting charity,
money for Saint Mary’s down the street.”
No matter where my fears first blossomed,
I know I would have preferred nuns in yellow
and orange habits. Maybe I would have even
given them the quarter I had buried deep in
the pocket of my red overalls.
Annette Friend, a retired occupational therapist and elementary school teacher, taught both Hebrew and Judaica to a wide range of students. In 2008, she was honored as the Grinspoon-Steinhardt Jewish Educator of the Year from San Diego. Her work has been published in The California Quarterly, Tidepools, Summation, and The San Diego Poetry Annual.
The Jewish Writing Project 