Sestina: Who Art
Niamh Carmichael Young Writers Issue | Poetry, Winter 2025
in Heaven we are all there,
my childhood dog and kindergarten teacher and my father.
i had a dream about it once: we stood on clouds
and walked to the supermarket. we talked
about my mom’s new boyfriend, if i liked him (i did),
and what that meant for us.
some wonder if He is so good then why does He do bad things to us.
as if the world wouldn’t fall if we never died, everyone floundering
in their own filth — He sends locusts so we do
not all strangle. but it’s only easy to know this until it’s my father,
until it’s my house that’s a little too empty, until i can’t talk
about him in present tense. he did cook well, he did like looking at clouds.
He was a great man. in my dream we went to a food lion in the clouds,
parking lot paved over cumulonimbus. my father always made us
giggle when he called it the shitty kitty, then told
us not to use that word. i wonder if he sounded different there,
but i don’t remember his voice anyway. my mother
asked me one time, and i said yes, of course i did.
now i lay in bed at night and if i pray (i rarely do)
i picture a great man in the clouds.
i don’t know if that’s the man Himself or my father.
as a child we sometimes went to church and while the reverend preached to us i looked up
and up at the church ceiling, stained glass and chandeliers. there was never a prettier arch
you’ve seen. i only half-listened, but i liked hearing the priest talk
like my father used to, like he adored the world. in my dream he and i talked. it had been
several years by that point, but maybe things never change with your father. i don’t know. he’s
been frozen for six—seven years, burnt to ash in a furnace, they’re sitting on the bookshelf of
the living room, a little in a locket, too, cloudy and gray. they remind us
of what it means to be free, to be holy, to be of the world. parts of my father
are across the united states, a little in england, in belize, in the atlantic. my father
was always an intrepid traveler, i am told.
my mother’s new boyfriend liked for us
to go to Sunday morning mass with him. i usually did
not mind, but that early in the day my mind could only be cloudy.
he had a different church. there weren’t as many arches there.
he didn’t believe in laughter in church, while often my father
would get mother-nudges for making us giggle during a song. i never did
fully understand the hymns. (who is Hosanna?) talk
to me, please, tell me why You put him in the clouds.
now my house and my pew are just a little bigger around us,
but i talked to my Father one last time in a dream up there.
______________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“My piece and the conversation within it represent less of who I am than who I could have been, had my life taken a different path and my father not been diagnosed with cancer, a life in which we would have continued to speak in life rather than just in my subconscious. The dream I describe is now several years old, so while there is that temporal distance, it also feels separate in a deeper sense, something that both a past and alternate version of myself would have experienced. In truth, this piece is my Trace Fossil because it will always be more of who I was and might have been than who I will ever be in the present.”
Niamh Carmichael (age 16) is a writer currently based in Charleston, South Carolina. She has been published in For Page and Screen, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, and TMP Magazine, and when not writing, she enjoys watching movies and reading.
Sestina: Who Art
Niamh Carmichael | Young Writers Issue | Poetry, Winter 2025
in Heaven we are all there,
my childhood dog and kindergarten teacher and my father.
i had a dream about it once: we stood on clouds
and walked to the supermarket. we talked
about my mom’s new boyfriend, if i liked him (i did),
and what that meant for us.
some wonder if He is so good then why does He do bad things to us.
as if the world wouldn’t fall if we never died, everyone floundering
in their own filth — He sends locusts so we do
not all strangle. but it’s only easy to know this until it’s my father,
until it’s my house that’s a little too empty, until i can’t talk
about him in present tense. he did cook well, he did like looking at clouds.
He was a great man. in my dream we went to a food lion in the clouds,
parking lot paved over cumulonimbus. my father always made us
giggle when he called it the shitty kitty, then told
us not to use that word. i wonder if he sounded different there,
but i don’t remember his voice anyway. my mother
asked me one time, and i said yes, of course i did.
now i lay in bed at night and if i pray (i rarely do)
i picture a great man in the clouds.
i don’t know if that’s the man Himself or my father.
as a child we sometimes went to church and while the reverend preached to us i looked up
and up at the church ceiling, stained glass and chandeliers. there was never a prettier arch
you’ve seen. i only half-listened, but i liked hearing the priest talk
like my father used to, like he adored the world. in my dream he and i talked. it had been
several years by that point, but maybe things never change with your father. i don’t know. he’s
been frozen for six—seven years, burnt to ash in a furnace, they’re sitting on the bookshelf of
the living room, a little in a locket, too, cloudy and gray. they remind us
of what it means to be free, to be holy, to be of the world. parts of my father
are across the united states, a little in england, in belize, in the atlantic. my father
was always an intrepid traveler, i am told.
my mother’s new boyfriend liked for us
to go to Sunday morning mass with him. i usually did
not mind, but that early in the day my mind could only be cloudy.
he had a different church. there weren’t as many arches there.
he didn’t believe in laughter in church, while often my father
would get mother-nudges for making us giggle during a song. i never did
fully understand the hymns. (who is Hosanna?) talk
to me, please, tell me why You put him in the clouds.
now my house and my pew are just a little bigger around us,
but i talked to my Father one last time in a dream up there.
________________________________________________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“My piece and the conversation within it represent less of who I am than who I could have been, had my life taken a different path and my father not been diagnosed with cancer, a life in which we would have continued to speak in life rather than just in my subconscious. The dream I describe is now several years old, so while there is that temporal distance, it also feels separate in a deeper sense, something that both a past and alternate version of myself would have experienced. In truth, this piece is my Trace Fossil because it will always be more of who I was and might have been than who I will ever be in the present.”
Niamh Carmichael (age 16) is a writer currently based in Charleston, South Carolina. She has been published in For Page and Screen, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, and TMP Magazine, and when not writing, she enjoys watching movies and reading.
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