New Year's
        Back from School

Exhale if ya can in mute Ohio, silent after the scene ends.
It's not hard to praise mist, dappled snow, after fire-works are lit.
Hometowns have churches, communion with wine or grape juice,
Take your pick. I'll take alcohol to see the scene of the angel,
Gabriel, touchin' Our Ladee's knee, not content with just whisperin'...
Truth now, who didn't creep beneath her arched features in the grotto,
Blue-white roses an' thorns, licorice green, just to find somethin'?
Tacky, right? Still, who did I kiss there among hibiscus orange obscene?
Confess, yes, the red flew out when I touched it. The bulb.
Someone had left flowers for her. Mary and her electricity.
Why do I feel wrong for not being anything like Mary?
What's a halo but some candle lit to catch sin, hold it in, clean it off,
They way ya hold a snowflake in drift with a naked palm.
Who knows, really, but those unknown ages buried now
Dead choirs buried long ago in the cold, cold snow?

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Copyright © 2017 Rachel Danielle Peterson All rights reserved
from A Girl's A Gun
The University Press of Kentucky
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission