Shadow Prayer by Jennifer Pons Agnes is a beauty jagged-a defiled cavity carved out her maidenhead bracing the stucco ceiling, a lamb in her arms in her arms in her heart between her thighs between her thighs is her maidenhead is her head. I rest my head in her lap, lapping the veins that stretch back into a mess of skin the angle is all wrong for holding the soft inside, the angels twist her bones into swords and the splinters fray into shade into bloody into shade into music like a sanctuary of body wet spit and Agnes and I hear hearts and Agnes and I see flesh and Agnes and I spill blood beneath the pew and we are angry and mourning as the thurible clicks smoke to redeem our heads that are maiden it seems as if everyone is here it seems as if each has a missing part it seems a sign then a boy in front of me turns his head an eye clenched in his fist an eye missing from his face his mouth moist and whispers where is your mother?
Jennifer Pons Todd Molinari 74