Once, after school on a late Friday afternoon,
my mom took me to a liquor store, 
near downtown Chicago.
Red-faced men shuffled out front, 
near a big silver door with a round window,
smoking unfiltered cigarettes.
Still in my St. Pete’s green, yellow and blue 
plaid uniform, eyes were on me
and my mom
in her dark cat-eye sunglasses.
She hoisted 2 big jugs of Carlo Rossi Chablis,
a bottle of Gallo burgandy onto the counter,
let go of my hand to carry the white.
I carried the smaller brown bag of red.

The bottles jiggled in the back seat,
almost fell to the floor
when she came to a complete stop
in front of the convent–
where the nuns lived.
This year I had tall Sister Rita Mary.
The large wooden rosary beads
hanging from her waist clanked
as as she wiggled down
the narrow aisles of desks, collecting
homework and the spelling words
we neatly wrote five times in vertical rows.

Mom said:
squat down in the front seat,
don’t get up until I tell you.
She got one jug up the narrow steps, 
came back for the second.  On the third trip,
she got the bottle of red,
opened the glove compartment,
above my head
grabbed a pack of Marlboro’s–
they were for Sister Geraldine.