It was Palm Sunday
She'd always liked Palm Sunday best
Because they give you palms to take home after church.
She was almost nine
and she was wearing her short pink dress
the one with the cap sleeves
she'd even let her sister put a bow in her hair
but she'd have to wear her brown shoes
the scuffed ones, with the left one's buckle missing.
It was getting toward the middle of the sermon
when the big cross, to the right of the altar, started getting fuzzy around the edges.
She blinked her eyes and tried to focus,
but the lines were getting blurry.
She slumped against her sister who hissed and said "Sit Up!"
and nudged her, and she fell into her little brother who turned sideways, like this,
twisting away.
and she rolled off him and fell on the floor.
and someone said, "She's fainted!"
And they came to pick her up
ten or twenty hands
lifting her
amd she felt like she was levitating or floating or something.
But all she could think , during those glorious, gray moments
was that they could all see her underwear.
They carried her over three pews that way
and laid her down on a bench.
and when she opened her eyes
she looked up at the ring of faces peering down at her.
Her mother and one of the churchmen came and got her up and walked her
to the back of the church
and into a little room, where they passed smelling salts under her nose.
and when she was completely coherent,
the churchman leaned over her and said, "Do you know why you passed out in church today?"
and she said, "Unh Unh."
and he said, "Well, it's because you're going to be a woman soon."
and she thought, "eeeuuughhh......."