Bruised Fruit Flesh. Poem by Terry Collett

Fay sat with Benedict
on the grass outside
Banks House. He wore
his faded blue jeans,

white tee shirt; she
wore a lemon dress
(one he liked) with
small white flowers.

It was warm, a summery
sun was in the sky,
trains moved over
the railway bridge

just over the way.
She talked of a nun
at her school, who
was strict and carried

a ruler around to hit
the hands of girls who
spoke out of turn.
Benedict sat cleaning up

his six-shooter toy gun,
wiping his handkerchief
over the silvery barrel.
Girls live in fear of her,

Fay said, she creeps behind
them and pokes her
finger into their flesh.
Have a teacher at my school

who pokes with a pencil,
Benedict said, digs it right in,
especially when he’s making
a point about something.

Fay’s eyes caught the sun’s light;
he thought he could see angel’s
playing there. She caught me
over my knuckles last week, Fay said.

Did you tell your parents? he asked.
God no, she said. Daddy would
have beaten me for sure; upsetting
nuns and such. O, he said, he loved

the way her fair hair shone in sunlight,
the way she moved her lips to form words.
He put his gun back in the holster
(the one his old man had given him)

around his shoulder. She spoke of
the mass and the priest who came.
Benedict didn’t know what the heck
the mass was, but he just listened to

her talk, watched her lips make words
like some potter makes bowls.
He studied her hands as she spoke,
how they gestured along with the words;

small hands, thin fingers. He couldn’t
understand how anyone could want
to slam a ruler over such thin knuckles.
She spoke of the Host and that it was Jesus

in the form of bread. He was stumped,
but listened on, taking in her every word,
the sound of the word, the way she
shaped it, the way her tongue seemed

to hold then throw out the word.
Then she stopped and pulled off her
yellow cardigan because of the heat.
He saw on her upper arm, a fading

green bruise, like damaged fruit gone off.
She put the cardigan on the grass,
and talked on about confessions,
about the confessional, how dark it was,

how the priest was hardly
visible through the metal mesh.
Benedict half listened; too concerned
about her bruised fruit flesh.