Loud enough that the stained-glass Mary overhead overheard,
Stephanie says, I don’t believe anymore. Me neither, I say,
because she drives an eighty-eight red Camaro & I don’t
want to be left at church alone. We ditch & slink
into a corner booth at Dairy Queen, split a sundae,
scribble on fudge-stained napkins. She writes priests & I
suggest ties & slacks. She puts hell & ink & whipped
cream begin to bleed together, each ex-communication
another smudge on this soon-to-be crumpled church
that I’ll smuggle home in my pocket like a fist-
ful of sand. Banished: the Pope, all dress clothes, & any
homophobes; the Bible, George W. Bush, & “Teen Life”
nights; Jesus bumper stickers, Jesus crucifixion jewelry,
& the Jesus cracker. Canonized: our old friend Juan,
who would convince a new girl to hold his hand Fridays
after school as his drill sergeant dad pulled up to the curb
& honked. Stephanie’s hand in mine, I say, It looks like we
are praying. I don’t know it yet, but she will soon
be taken off life support. I don’t hear it, yet the sound
of two hands making one is the mouth setting a bed
for the soul, or something warmer, more corporeal
like a laugh in a well. Stephanie rolls her eyes, looks at me
like she did when I asked between bites of that sundae,
What do we believe? Her face says everything, says, Nothing
beyond this booth, says this is final, no takebacks, rip up
the scripture; our faith a phantasm, our god a dead letter.