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Communion

Communion

A poem by Michelle Bitting

The lobby packed with tired patients.
An hour’s wait to poke my daughter’s arm,
the body’s wine drawn from limbs
scarce thicker than the veins they house.
She scans the room, marking her own:
pigeon-like, hones in
on the nearest ring of children.
Open bag of Ruffles
clasped in greasy fist,
she touches down, fronting the group,
like the house ready to deal.
A boy with brown-chip eyes whimpers,
points a chubby digit
at her crinkling snack.
I look at his mother; she nods consent.
Then they all dip in—
each small hand
with its hidden diagnosis
reaching for the salty wafer,
its oily hope,
the crisp bite of fear taken together
and chewed into silence.

Copyright 2006 by Michelle Bitting

Michelle Bitting Michelle writes:
These poems were inspired by my children, some by events that although difficult we somehow managed to live through—a little beauty sprung here, perhaps, in the form of poetry, in spite of everything.

Michelle Bitting has work forthcoming or published in Glimmer Train, Swink, Prairie Schooner, Small Spiral Notebook, Nimrod, The Southeast Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Poetry Southeast, Slipstream, Dogwood, Salt Hill, Pearl, Rattle, and others. She has won the Glimmer Train, Rock & Sling, and Poets On Parnassus poetry competitions. Formerly a dancer and a chef, she teaches children and is a devoted outreach worker. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Phil Abrams, an actor. They have two children, Elijah and Vera Rose. Last summer, Michelle attended the Squaw Valley Writer's Conference, and in June 2006 she will commence work on an MFA at Pacific University in Oregon. Michelle can be reached via email at: bitbrams@earthlink.net.

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