The Body Remembers

To you, I was always “Bob’s bastard,”

A reminder that someone touched her before you.

My body remembers your grease-stained, gnarled fists

smashing my pink flesh to bone.

My body remembers your steel-toed shoes

ploughing into my belly and back.
Sometimes mom begged you to stop.
Sometimes she sobbed, immobile.
Sometimes she looked away.

Though you’ve been dead for years,

You live here now.

Imprisoned in the body of the girl you despised.

 Hooking Up in a Time of CORONAVIRUS

I called Safina today to check on her invalid mother

in Pakistan.
Rather than being sad or even worried, she was
joyous and exuberant.
“I feel so guilty. But, honestly, I’m on my
honeymoon!”
She explained that she ran into her delicious ex,
stocking up on produce at the Giant.
Now, they are “co-isolating.”
She conceded “We have no future. But we have no
other place to be.”
A Manifesto: Lies We Learned in Sunday School
A Date Rape in August 1994

After he subdued, then violated me

I was grateful it was over quickly.
Then panic’s tremors shook my shameful rage:
Was I pregnant?
Did he give me a disease?

As I waited for the answers,

They told me to ask god for the strength
To move on.

Fuck that.

If prayers worked, I’d pray for the strength to rip him apart.

Ephesians 6: 10-20
 Lady Lazarus

When these men tried their best to break

you,

When even you believe you have been

broken,

Let your righteous rage rise up in waves

That wash over you,

Resurrect and revive you,

Baptize you Lady Lazarus.

Stand tall and seize the space your

magnificence demands

which they tried to deny you.

And as you glower down at these false prophets quaking with fear,

Anticipating your retribution, remember:

Neither mercy nor magnanimity is imposed upon you.

Did they ever extend such graceful courtesies to you?

John 11: 38-44

Luke Told us Mary Wanted It

Believers exalt the Virgin Mary whose womb god blessed with his only
son.

They cite the hearsay of Luke to assert her consent.

Yet we never hear Mary’s version of events.; rather, only that of Luke,
who claims the angel Gabriel visited her to say:

“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And
behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you
shall call his name Jesus.”

When the terrified girl asked how a virgin could conceive, Luke says
that Gabriel said that:

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most
High will overshadow you.”

According to Luke, Mary acquiesced by telling Gabriel that she is “the

servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

But we all know the Holy Spirit has a long history of smiting the
disobedient.

This was not the first or last time in our history when a man claimed
he heard from another man who knew for certain she really wanted it.

No. Mary’s body wasn’t the site of a miracle.

Her body was a crime scene.

Luke 1:26-37