Ghosts in the Graveyard
       

There were always more girls at youth group than boys.
Girls are easier to convert. You don't have to convince them
of their worthlessness in the world.
They already know.

Still, boys need saving, too.
Their pastor encouraged the girls to lure their crushes to church.
Before being bathed in the blood of the lamb, he'd been a pimp.
Now he was reborn. From the pulpit of his newest employ, he liked to say:
I've become a different kind of fisher of men.
So they'd bring the boys to Wednesday night youth group,
watch cartoons about blasphemers melting like marshmallows
in a lake of fire. Afterwards, pass a platter of Chips Ahoy,
discuss how to recognize the Whore of Babylon,
take turns guessing which of their classmates were going to hell,

then gather on the church lawn to play Ghosts in the Graveyard.
Under the blinking eyes of the parking lot lights she always pretended
she wasn't fast. She wanted Ricky, so she would let him catch
and pin her against the church's brick façade, his palms pressed
against her panting ribs, his thumbs tempting the band of her bra.
Once, on the way home from a youth group trip to Kings Dominion,
they French-kissed in the bucket of the church van's back seat
while listening to "Sweet Child of Mine" on his Walkman.

Later, Ricky would dump her for Lana, the new girl
who sat in the back pew and whose rich father touched her
where only husbands should. And then Cindy, whose bartender
mother was never home so she got drunk on wine coolers
every Saturday and had already slept with two boys and wept
with relief when she was baptized. A few months later
Ricky dumped Cindy for Misty who showed up at youth group
dark-eyed and haunted but never confessed
who or what had been breaking her.
She must have been the most damaged of all
because it was Misty who Ricky wanted most,

and Misty, who finally reeled in Ricky.

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Copyright © 2022 Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose All rights reserved
from Imago, Dei
Rattle
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission