TEMPORAL

God is love. hollow words fall on wet
grass tongues. I am July drought. I am
cracking skin under last row heat. palms up
blood under wrists, blue trees that turn red
before dawn. how do bodies grow, hair on
knuckles and strokes on thighs? my stomach
growls. my insides sit packed with the places
I have been. places where dark organ meats
meet regret meet self-loathing
meet coughs from cigarettes and too
many nights on the porch, bleeding
into a glass of wine. this body is full
and old and I wonder what’s outside of it.
I wonder what’s inside of it

everything
everything
everything

full gusts I swallow at dawn
when I’m up and the city is cold in my lungs.
heartbeats, enough life for the pair of us,
sitting silent while the pain rests in our laps.
it spreads across knees, covers the way skin
does. deep the way guilt goes. prayers like
a commute driving bumper to bumper
home, but the sunset, my God

the buildings, the way they wink like
that. metal hips glowing
with a peace I want to hold.

God is love.
see! I am too.

By Cate LeBrun

Biography:

Cate LeBrun is a writer and special education teacher from Pasco, Washington. She enjoys the hell out of dad jokes, kindness, and the view of Mt. Rainier on a sunny day. Her work has been published in Words Dance Magazine, Gonzaga University’s Reflection, and on her mom’s refrigerator. You can find her at caterosewrites.tumblr.com, along with poetry and prose surrounding the issues of addiction, recovery, and the beauty in this gorgeous, broken world.