Biblical Passage

You move five pieces into the furthest square. Your hips jut and you think, I know how to play the game. The board between your teeth, you think, I’ve bit down hard, so something will leave a mark. If not me, then the hands of those who queen me. It’s a kind of stuttering my body does that needs fixing. A firefly gives off its own kind of stink when crushed. You’re a leaky lightbulb, he says as my stomach flops like the way I roll my car over the speedbumps, careful not to snag his nails.

I’m the swallowed movement in a film still, 10 cameras trained on me—no, make it 7—because he says 7 is the sign of God and I will be faithful to his memory because it is better than mine. He can say, You’re always holding yourself off , but it’s just my body like a cross at the end of a country road, big buzzard circling me. Flame god, feather on me, gauging me for a take. I admit I flinched first. Come, now, part me from myself.