By: Ute Carson

My knees sink onto the worn cushion in the confession booth
as I lean my forehead against the mesh screen,
hoping that not a priest but my mother could hear my pleas.
“My sins were avoidance and neglect as I flitted through the world
when my mother waited longingly for my presence.
I want to make amends but she is no longer among the living.”

“These are common regrets,” the priest interjects.
“Five prayers to the Virgin Mary. Your mother forgave you long ago.
Now go in peace.”

What can I offer when it is too late
and even tears cannot wash away my guilt?
How I resent the deceased who have morphed into old ghosts.
As I shuffle out of the sanctuary an answer to my question
confronts me with outstretched arms and beseeching eyes.
There they are, the living, who need my presence, my care.

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  Ute Carson, a German-born writer from youth and an MA graduate in Comparative Literature from the University of Rochester, published her first prose piece in 1977. Colt Tailing, a 2004 novel, was a finalist for the Peter Taylor Book Award. Ute’s story “The Fall” won Outrider Press’s Grand Prize and appeared in its short story and poetry anthology, A Walk through My Garden, in 2007. Her second novel In Transit was published in 2008.

   Ute’s poetry was televised on the Spoken Word Showcase 2009-2011, Channel Austin. A poetry collection Just a Few Feathers was published in 2011. The poem “A Tangled Nest of Moments” placed second in the Eleventh International Poetry Competition 2012. Her chapbook, Folding Washing, was published in 2013 and her collection of poems, My Gift to Life, was nominated for the 2015 Pushcart Prize. Save the Last Kiss, a novella, was published in 2016. Her poetry collection, Reflections, came out in 2018and In the Blink of an Eye in 2023.