The Sunday Blues

By Jessica Walters

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On Sundays after
church while the adults
had coffee and pie 
we played in the barn, 
the cornfield, the forest. 
We played kick 
the can, capture the flag, 
we played pretend,
imagining the most elicit 
thing we could think
of—that we were orphans.

It changed slowly
the way things do. 
Friends left home, 
moved away, had marriages
their families disapproved
of, had kids outside marriage, 
chose the wrong job, 
started asking questions.

It was the questions,
in the end, that led
us away. 
But we didn’t foresee how
they would unspool us and
the old life.

We asked questions as if
those Sundays would house
us when we returned--

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Jessica Walters' work has been published in The Ormsby Review, [spaces] literary journal, Still, Agape Review, Scintilla and Solum, and her short story 'Glass Jars' was shortlisted for the Mitchell Prize for Faith and Writing. Holding an MFA in Creative Writing, she teaches creative and academic writing in Langley, British Columbia.