I TAKE THE EUCHARIST IN ALPINE, THE HOUSE OF GOD IS AN ABATTOIR

You said God is a shout in the street. Read it somewhere. Said it again and again.
I looked out of our window, into the field.
That scarecrow has always been there. He’s strung up.
The crow bites a stigmata.  
Maybe the man who said that
Saw the preachers
At the outlet, in the town.
They pray over you like bad dogs next to the $2 hot dog stand.
Jerking on their leashes and spitting orisons for the damned.
I don’t know what they think is coming. But it scares me.
For you, there is no superstition. You said he is not a man with ears,
not a man with eyes to see, and if he is here, he is to be felt.
For me, there is devotion. It comes in waves. It comes mostly at night.
At twilight. The aircon is broken.
How much of religion is about hunger?
Under sheets, you find crevices. You reach for benediction. You reach,
irreconcilably, for the divine.
You put your mouth against mine.
But I learned to eat what I love
at first communion.
I want your every thumb-bone rattling against my neck.
I was made from your rib, I’ll gnaw my way back.
You said God is a shout in the street.
But He does not echo, only feeds.

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Olive Mills, 19, unknown ✯ IG: @cowboysmouth ✯ BACK TO POETRY: OUROBOROS