By Brooke Standish
i colored Jesus with markers.
i learned the word for
atonement. sweet tea in a dixie cup,
a lime green marker fallen
to the floor. i pick it up
& kiss its head, i pray for its
salvation in chapel, after recess,
i become the 7th plague of Moses:
a thunderstorm on cardboard
raised above my head—
i was an exile, so missing
from mother who sat in the back
of the chapel beside the door,
she leaves before the apocalypse &
i am left alone, a child in silence
beneath stained glass—
for what? am i searching
if not, for this?
Brooke Stanish is a writer from Sunrise, Florida, and an MFA candidate in the Creative Writing Program at Louisiana State University. Her work appears in America, The Windhover, The Rectangle, Whale Road Review, Living Waters Review, Time of Singing, Green Blotter, Manzano Mountain Review, and other publications.
