Winter Fast Offerings

When no one was faking sick, we were nine — 
just enough to cover the routes if someone 
doubled up. We argued over the packets, 
weighing thickness against distance, 
then fumbled ourselves into old coats, 
our breath already measuring the cold. 

And those stiff blue envelopes, dog-eared, 
banded together, with smeared addresses 
and dangly strings that wrapped back and forth — 
you weren’t allowed to look inside them, 
but you could feel the money. A check. 
A wad of bills from the wealthy. 

We smiled and thanked them, carrying with us 
a face, a smell, the heft of an old sofa, 
until we almost knew them. The Hearing Aid Family.
Sister Coffee and Toast. Or the Clock Man. 
If you went exactly on the hour, you’d hear 
twenty-seven cuckoos and gongs go off at once. 

And Old Lady Allsop, with her mangy black cats 
and baby grand, who always took so long at the door.
Everyone wanted to cut her from the list. 
We passed her envelope around till every deacon 
had felt it. Two quarters. Might keep 
a starving cat alive, but no one else.