Psalm of bandages

I associate you with Sunday; domesticated and
thematic through stained glass.

I imagine you being clutched by weeping men,
slamming against you for answers.

We needed a distraction and God was
as good as any. When we hid

under chapel stairs, forehead on forehead.
When your skin was itchy

and too tight for your swelling chest. So close
to your emerald green eyes

that I hoped they’d cut me if you blinked.
You were God’s mint filter,

I was her ashtray. My humble bloodied knee
staining your Sunday best,

as you slit your index finger over Corinthians
and mixed us as one.

This was not the first time we’d been so
carelessly alive.

We had pressed leaves, tied together at the stem,
sat formless in pews

between the lustrous punch ups of rain and the
melody it made on the windows

just to destroy something wonderful. There was no
salvation come morning,

only the light, naked in our shaking hands, sick
at the thought of reflecting us.

An earlier version of this poem was published by Effervescent Lit Mag.

By Dean Rhetoric

Biography:

Dean Rhetoric is a Hereford born working class poet and former foundryman currently lost somewhere in East London. He is a former BBC writer’s room finalist with poetry in Seafoam, Picaroon, Anti – Heroin Chic, Ghostland, Occulum and various others. He can be found attempting human interaction/wheezing uncontrollably here and here.