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God Must Be a Beautiful and Lonely Outcast
By Kyle Hemmings
For a moment,
she forgets that her body
is the bark of a decaying yew
or the egrets that once rested
on her branches
bring only tiny jolts of pain
snatching a bite of her flesh.
Their nest is somewhere else.
They leave her with
a jagged line of imprints.
She won’t send me away.
This afternoon’s love
will be like morphine
and only a dose.
I think of the drip rate
of rain over crowded cities,
their underbellies.
This scorned harlot of a body
was once conjured
from the River Pishon
and I was the first and last man
in Eden. If I ask her to undress,
will she? Will it be too painful?
And this forbidden apple we eat
never tasted as sweet as today,
our slow dying, unfolding.
I can hear that river breathe.
Kyle Hemmings lives and works in New Jersey. In his spare time, he skateboards and falls. His stories, poems, and artwork, have been featured in JMWW, UpTheStaircase, Fried Chicken and Coffee, Why Vandalism?, and others.
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