Provocation

Janann Dawkins

 

He took me to the old brick church, its ghost

white stones peering through midnight gauze,

and let his hands ease down my skin, almost

an ache, or a blasphemy.  We both paused,

unsure if Christ could sense Ben's thumb betray

his wife's breast, or witness the trailing train

of female fingers too possessed to pray,

too full of darkened blood to be contained.

 

Hours past his departure, draped in young

morning mist, I ventured back to bricks

blistered in dew.  Condensation clung,

a glister of liquid pearl, like sweat betwixt

abdomen and breast.  Thus I stood, among

passionflower, birdsong and crucifix.

              

        


Janann Dawkins has work published or forthcoming in Mississippi Crow, Louisville Review, Literary House Review, MiPoesias and Poesia.  She has a chapbook, Micropleasure (Leadfoot Press, 2008. She is a graduate of Grinnell College with a BA in American Studies and resides in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

 

 

  

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