issue two / celestial
Another Sunday Sermon
in Hendricks County
Tara Ventura
Another Sunday Sermon
Nathan baptizes me
in the backyard
and I am born again,
unsure if I ever really went under in an above ground pool,
but he says it counts just as much so
I light a cigarette to balance my new body back out and pass it.
I drink from the bottle,
flap my soggy wings and squirm.
The butt comes back to me
a jewel beetle,
belly-up and drowning
from the party’s open-mouthed kiss.
Her limbs rattle:
we are not supposed to be here, but
this is where I’ve always been
so I pull her from blueblack anathema
and say,
“maybe Nathan will baptize you, too.”
Or maybe
the beetle’s a ritual atheist
and I’m just another starving philanthropist
knocking on her door.
Overindulged,
entertain this:
what I take as evidence of cryptids
is only a beetle in the backyard,
rolled over with
bent wings,
still glistening, and
a testament.
Cursing herself for
having been born so small.
in the backyard
and I am born again,
unsure if I ever really went under in an above ground pool,
but he says it counts just as much so
I light a cigarette to balance my new body back out and pass it.
I drink from the bottle,
flap my soggy wings and squirm.
The butt comes back to me
a jewel beetle,
belly-up and drowning
from the party’s open-mouthed kiss.
Her limbs rattle:
we are not supposed to be here, but
this is where I’ve always been
so I pull her from blueblack anathema
and say,
“maybe Nathan will baptize you, too.”
Or maybe
the beetle’s a ritual atheist
and I’m just another starving philanthropist
knocking on her door.
Overindulged,
entertain this:
what I take as evidence of cryptids
is only a beetle in the backyard,
rolled over with
bent wings,
still glistening, and
a testament.
Cursing herself for
having been born so small.
Tara Ventura is a teacher, poet, and graduate student from Indianapolis, Indiana. Her work has been featured in Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis’s literary magazine, genesis. When she isn’t in the classroom, she usually can be found petting her dog.