The smell of churches

You walk past a removal van this morning,
you peep inside - all dark,
glossy wooden furniture that smells of churches.
Perhaps an old person died, you think,
feeling guilty for wondering.
The smell is strong: it's like the pews and pulpit
of the church you had to sing carols in at Christmas
when you were at secondary school.
A firm memory bubbles - getting dropped off at church
for choir practice,
early on a freezing morning
with your sister, who sneaks you off for your first ever
McDonald's breakfast.

The circular eggs seem too perfect but you

eat them anyway.
At twelve you are clumsy and uncomfortable
in the body you have been landed with,
a mystery to you - unwanted and grown up.
You sing soprano, though you struggle for the very high notes.
Popular girls play flute - you can play guitar,
but you gave it up when other girls said it wasn't cool.
You have to do a reading. The thought of all the eyes on you
in that heavily varnished pulpit
as you read this unknown verse is a horror.
You swallow it down.
Rehearsals come to an end, and a coach comes to pick you all up.
You open your coat against the cold to feel it.
It all comes back today,
over twenty years later,
the smell of churches only populating a handful of your

heathen childhood memories. 

This morning is freezing too, 

and a high bright blue sky watches over you. 

Your heart aches for that girl, then,
but you stride to work and remember all of that made you
this woman, now.