Solatium
by Michaela Coplen
He didn’t take Communion for a while
we’d file past to the priest’s soft drone
& he’d stay praying knelt alone
lips split by breath against unbloodied hands
We all knew that he’d killed a man
or family in the war we couldn’t name
a civilian home a small mistake
God & country soon forgave
(they’d given the surviving son a place to live
& cash enough to quiet grievance into grief)
Yet still he’d see the stained-glass saints encircled
by yellow target sights instead of leaded halo light
& the incense curled too sweetly in the air
& the wafer turned to paper in his mouth