What if loftiness is a false flower —
and the church’s real purpose is
bingo faith, not sanctuary salvation?
My grandmother was a prophet
of generosity, her cash creed:
You don’t win if you don’t give it away.
Much more than mad money,
her profits from games of chance
were pillars of her ballsy beliefs.
She’d quietly teach me her own
moral code, whispering of her best friend:
She never wins because she keeps it all.
Once, I saw her use her own shoe
to create a secret stain and a righteous
discount on an overpriced baby hat.
In the early 80’s, when I had big hair,
born-again friends told me this scorching untruth:
Your grandmother is going to hell.
These Saturday-bingo-grandmas
that don’t pray in pews get tut-tutting from
Sunday-church-goers so damn sure they’re blessed.
They are all wrong. Helen’s holiness shined
in bright kitchen light, adding up winnings
and givings in her flowered, cotton housedress.
Ellen Skilton is a professor of education whose creative writing has appeared in The Dewdrop, Cathexis Northwest Press, The Scapegoat Review, and The Dillydoun Review. She is also an excellent napper, a chocolate snob, a swimmer, and lives in Philadelphia with a dog named Zoomer, a cat named Katniss and some lovely humans.
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