A wagon of Mennonite girls passes by on the dirt road,
calico cape-dresses and Jackie-O sunglasses.
Adagio of trout in the stream,
abracadabra of wind in the willows over the water
and the sky like a battlefield,
the aerobatics and ballistics of birds.
All of it so beautiful,
like bones we might reassemble and redeem
from the damned,
quiver the vertebrae into place,
snap the atlas in its lock
and the world will rest in Sabbath at last.
I wanted to be loved, shut up in the ark
like something worth saving, didn’t you? Didn’t you?
Blessed art thou
by whose word all things come into being.
"Confession'" was originally in Tongue Screw (Spark Wheel Press, 2016) and is republished here with permission of the author.
The ALL Review is pleased to present our How to Live series, poems chosen to help readers navigate these difficult and rapidly changing times.
