chapel song
By Eliza Rudalevige
A small farewell from one of your literary editors.
My father and I, we sing loudly in church;
it's one of the few things we still have in common.
And even then, it’s a rare occurrence
when we both sit in the pews of
my lazy, lovely, disjointed youth
and harmonize, literally.
He always sight-reads the bass line.
I would say he gets it about two-thirds right,
on a lucky day. On these unlucky days,
it’s the good part of church:
the faith laden in the music,
the bottom-worn bench beneath us,
my father fumbling through the
gentle tangle of notes.
