it's darker in the parson's house where the little girl with hair the color of a harvest lays in a straight and narrow bed with wide eyes straining moonlight
filtered
"Tony . . ."
she sifts
her brother's
name
through
white-washed
air
"yeah"
"did you sin today?"
"prob'ly"
her
freckled brow furrow-
ing her
small thumb itch-
ing her
birthmark her
palms press-
ing together her
pink tongue
pierced
with
prayer her
dear God if I sinned today
they pulse
the veins
in her
temples
please forgive me
her
temples
and if I die in my sleep
if I
die
***
freckles
dissolve and
dark filters
clog palms
re-read thumbs
oppose tongues
turn silver and silent birthmarks
fade and veins
and temples temple
veins
petrify
and
thank god
thank
god
souls
keep
I didn't know what to expect by the end and now that I've reached it, I have no words. But then, your writing always leaves me speechless x
ReplyDeleteThis is beautiful prose, Angie. The twist between adolescence and faith is very well done. Rasii
ReplyDeleteCant help wondering what you would have splashed on a canvas, and what if you had encountered Byron in those fields of harvest green!
ReplyDeleteThank you, friends, for coming here.
ReplyDeleteDarkly beautiful. I see them frozen there, if nothing more, then in memory.
ReplyDelete