imitation 5 by Lauren Jernberg

Sundays By: Lauren Jernberg

My father wakes up early on Sundays

Same routine every time. He makes the

Coffee, as black as can be, as he gets

Ready for church. Once he is done he takes

A cup to the table and starts to read

The paper. At six-thirty he comes in

To wake me up. He says it is time to

Get ready for church. I get up right away

Unlike my sister. She sleeps till seven

Or when she gets yelled at. She is like a

Bear in hibernation. You don’t want to

Wake her unless you can take on the wrath.

She doesn’t just bark she bites too and it

Hurts. When we are all ready we head to

Church. No one wants to sit by mom because

She has the singing voice of an alley

Cat crying in the night. We sing pretty

Songs and listen to sermon. We go to

Leave but there is no going back once you

Are suck in the rut of the lobby. It

Catches it’s victims like a venus fly

trap. For bait it uses a hello form

a friend. When you reply it reels you in

to finish the job. You are stuck in a

never ending conversation with more

than one person. It takes a great deal of

effort to pry mom from its jaws. Now it’s

finally over and we can leave. Back

to the house where mom makes breakfast and dad

cleans up. Just another day family.

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Early Sunday Morning By: Edward Hirsch

I used to mock my father and his chums

for getting up early on Sunday morning

and drinking coffee at a local spot

but now I’m one of those chumps.

No one cares about my old humiliations

but they go on dragging through my sleep

like a string of empty tin cans rattling

behind an abandoned car.

It’s like this: just when you think

you have forgotten that red-haired girl

who left you stranded in a parking lot

forty years ago, you wake up

early enough to see her disappearing

around the corner of your dream

on someone else’s motorcycle

roaring onto the highway at sunrise.

And so now I’m sitting in a dimly lit

café full of early morning risers

where the windows are covered with soot

and the coffee is warm and bitter.