Moths are flapping behind the colored glass portrait of a dead Christ,
the thirteenth station—He's on His mother's lap. Mary's tears are as blue
as her robe. Tonight is the first time ever in my life to touch snow.
There is less than an inch on the ground, but for Alabama
this is a miracle. Tomorrow they might even cancel school.
Father Neske chants hallelujah and the children follow in warm echoes.

The dunces in the cry room are deaf to the other children's echoes.
They hear mass through a tinny speaker next to a statue of Christ
on the crucifix hanging on the wall. The rest of the school
is sitting boy-girl-boy-girl in the pews—white collared shirts and blue
ties for the boys. In front of me, an old bearded man in a white Alabama
Crimson Tide sweatshirt clips his nails. The clippings drop like snow.

Hartley Griffith and I face-lock with laughter as the paper snow
outside spins down in flakes. I whisper: Hotel-Alpha-Romeo-Tango-Lima-Echo-
Yankee! So goes the fifth-grade soldier code for Catholic Alabama
boys in love with this blonde northern belle next to me. At age five, I loved Christ
so much I wanted to be a priest. But now, Nintendo and Hartley's Yankee blue
eyes separate me from God. Hartley Griffith is the new girl at our school.

She moved here from St. Cloud, Minnesota—from a public school
where every afternoon kids play sardines and dungeon in the snow.
My mother says to stay inside. I play games where Italian plumbers in blue
overalls chase bouncing stars. A mushroom is an extra life. I fear the echoes
of turtle shells ricocheting off white brick. My inspiration is Jesus Christ
carrying His cross. I must save the Yankee Princess trapped in Alabama.

Mama tells me our family is moving in six months from Alabama
to West Virginia. Papa has a new practice. No more St. Ignatius school.
I will attend an ex-military institution. There are no classes there about Christ.
I will wear a blazer and a tie. Mama says up north there is always snow
in the winter. "West Virginia seceded from the Confederacy," the echoes
of Mrs. Sullivan's fifth-grade Civil War lecture. A boy of gray must turn blue.

Outside there are stars in the trees along the road—red, white and blue.
A robot Santa Claus with rosy cheeks waves three flags: one for Alabama,
one for the Confederacy, and one for the USA. From inside we hear the echoes
of a siren howling down the road. Father Neske tells a joke. The school
cheers with joy. I'm not sure what Father has said but maybe it's about the snow.
Maybe tonight is special. A siren is rushing to the new virgin. Jesus Christ

is born days before schedule. Papa in a blue scrub suit will visit my new school
next year to talk to the kids about that evening down in Alabama, when snow
fell from the moon; the echoes of organ blasts too soon delivered a new baby Christ.