First Reconciliation Abecedarian
Against my irreverent impulses, I enumerate my sins:
blasphemous dinner requests, stressing my parents, switching
C to D on a science test after squinting at my smarter neighbor’s sheet.
Decanting my guilt in the booth, I want Father K to know I’ve learned
eleven Latin phrases and tried hard to be good. Yes, when a boy says
Filipinos are Catholic only because of Spain, I imagine poking out his
gawking eyes, the lunch line stalling as he studies my souvenir
Hundred Islands shirt. Wrath, my biggest vice. Still, I’m devout.
I’m sure God hears my biweekly nighttime prayers, even if he
just can’t respond. But my mother’s face twists like a horror movie
knife when I ask over breakfast: How do we know God
listens? What does he sound like? Don’t you know,
Mom? No, I can’t confess to Father K these
non-believer tendencies, or he’ll prescribe more than a generous
octet of penance. One Hail Mary, he’ll demand, for each
pearl on your mother’s rosary, an Our Father for each time you were too
quick to lose your place. As Mom leads family prayer, I
rub the rose fragrance from terracotta beads
sent from her sister in Vatican City. Imagine that, Mom says,
trotting about the basilicas, gallivanting in Rome! Imagine sweet wine,
unsweet spaghetti! Imagine wishing Father K, Happy
Valentine’s Day. Alone in the pews, I clasp my hands and ask God,
Why am I so bad at being good? Jesus’s stone body rests in a perfect
X suspended above me, dove-white and silent. What if I leave without
yearning for forgiveness? What if this is the closest to heaven I’ll ever be?
Noreen Ocampo is a Filipino American writer and poet from metro Atlanta. She is the author of two chapbooks, including There Are No Filipinos in Mississippi (Porkbelly Press, 2025) and Not Flowers (Variant Literature, 2022). Her work appears or is forthcoming in Frontier Poetry, Southeast Review, The Margins, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA from the University of Mississippi in 2025.
