As Holy

As Holy

Jess Arends

The creek gargles,

and I admit

my teeth aren’t brushed.

How baffling to remember I have a body.

A blackened toe-

an elbow habitually bruised

a color I can only feel.

“Gracious like moss,” says the Wind.

I fumble “who?”

“Who but not you? Are we not

the same body?”

I stop.

-

We gush touching our core. Red,

but mostly sour.

Lava

coming.

Crash to the floor

for just

one woman.

A queerness between

yellow and orange.

Root on the brown, cracked

sidewalk. Yet,

still collapse on each Tuesday.

Like the day I quit my job

without meaning to.

I resurface.

-

Palm on the bark, sun down

my shirt. I whisper back,

“Jesus wasn’t as human as us”

“Or as holy” breezed by.