Liz Dolan

While cicadas crackle in the piney woods
and raccoons skitter through bracken,
we in the cabin march from showers
through long rows of cots
smothered in army surplus blankets.

A ginger-haired girl sobs into her pillow.
I can still taste the blue milk
from the bottom of my breakfast cup.

On the bent-backed chair I fold
my shorts and tees into small prayers
place my scuffed Keds next
to my battered suitcase beneath my bunk.

As the black-bonnet nun sweeps by
like a great swell, I barely breathe.
Her long beads dangle from her leather belt, click.

In her wake, I tiptoe
to my cousin Kathleen's bunk starved
for the scent of home. I long to whiff
my mother's sage-scented hands
steaming from laundry. I slip my arm about her waist
and hold on.