Pen Pals

My father’s desk is covered in piles of small, white security envelopes
lined with blue and white stripes (so no one can see through).

Usually, my father slits the top of each envelope with a fake dagger from Spain,
and a check slides out, someone’s contribution to the church’s weekly collection,

someone who didn’t make it to church,
someone who is in a nursing home or wintering in Florida.

Parishioners send handwritten notes with the checks, scrawled neatly in cursive
with tight letters and loops on personal stationary—flowers or ships or trees.

It’s part of the job, receiving the church’s mail, tending to the infrequent inquiry
about so and so’s relative who was married or buried there.

Sorting out church bills from promotional flyers, the small white envelopes
ice the tip of his wobbling mountains of mail.

But someone who sits in church each week, someone whose skirt or suit
diligently polishes a pew every week, someone who goes to our church,

someone who calls the prayer line at any hour has been watching our family, taking notes.
Someone who sits in church each week has been sending hate mail to the pastor.

Each week the letters arrive in small, white security envelopes with no return address
detailing the faults in my father’s sermons, his lateness to Bible study.

Everyone’s entitled to an opinion, he shrugs, but the letters that plague him,
push him to red-faced, silent steaming, chastize him for adopting

two more children, calculate our water usage, note the late hours lights are on,
remind him that not everyone can live in a five bedroom parsonage,

demand he take over the custodial duties and fire the janitor to save money,
suggest he shouldn’t minister to AIDS patients, think he should drive a nicer car,

and ask how he can be a good little soldier of God when his daughter is gay.
Someone who sits in church each week has been sending hate mail to the pastor.

"Pen Pals" was first published in The New Writer (Fall 2000)
Copyright 2000: J. Elizabeth Clark

J. Elizabeth Clark, Ph.D. (lclark@lagcc.cuny.edu)
Professor of English
Office: E-103 H in The Department of English
Phone:718.482.5665
Summer 2009 Office Hours

Site Credits: This site was last updated on 13 May 2009. Site designed and maintained by J. Elizabeth Clark. Technical Assistance provided by Delwar Sayeed and Priscilla Stadler.