False Church
and of ignored clutching
with torn torch:
their lips
cracked frightened.
them speak on fields,
baked moon,
livestock bones
returning frightened.
of their never
and to straining order.
legs, straw.
ignored kitchens.
morning gaping, hungry:
the soil reaped.
and where hands them cracked
napped each their children
clutching corn,
cut wheat, night pacts,
the moon
coming closer.
Archive
she wanted to know
why
their bodies
remembered—
as if
hunting.
Is Blood
and the light,
mended.
without morning
the church couldn't ring.
the river is low
but pray:
the road to love
is blood.
Jessica Poli is the author of the chapbooks Alexia (Sixth Finch), Glassland (JMWW), and The Egg Mistress (Gold Line Press). Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Caketrain, and Southern Indiana Review, among others. She is a graduate of Syracuse University's MFA program, and the editor of Birdfeast.