I may have kissed Gayle 
   Hamilton on the Holy Cross Lutheran
Youth Group camp out.  Night mist
   veiled the Little Pend Oreille,
and we walked inside it to the edge,
   water chucking against the hidden dock.

Luther may have cowered in a hollow
   stump when once the thunder roared,
but all I remember is sleeping beneath
   a Forest Service picnic table as the rain
began to fall, roofed by soggy Oreos.
   Of the banging out of Heart and Soul

in the basement of the church
   before the classes the pastor taught-
until he was asked to leave for claiming
   to speak in tongues-of this there is
little doubt.  And the grass growing
   above us.  And the surge of night.

Heart and Soul!  I fell in love with you!
   Lost control, the way a fool would do!
Ploddingly, thrillingly, week after week.
   When finally we stood at the altar,
in corsages and albs, ready to receive 
   the Body of Christ-this, too, seems true-

the May sun poured through the blurry
   windows and baked the velvet pews,
the whole church reeking of hymnals and
   Vitalis, and the tall boy on the left of me
keeled over backwards, out like a light,
   his wide eyes rolling back in his head.