No stained glass, just threadbare carpet
and stiff-backed pews. Warbling voices
on Easter. Songs with words so familiar,
I forget how ugly they sound, how slowly
they chip away at what remains of me.
Grape juice and chalky pale crackers—
a cheap version of blood and body,
watered-down salvation. Knees bent
at the altar, hands pressed to your spine.
Tell me once again that I am redeemed.
Sunday school rooms with peeling
paint and threadbare Bibles, sometimes
a dusty piano sitting in the corner out
of tune, a single window to watch
the congregants slip through the doors.
Sometimes I felt the verses in my soul,
words stuck in my throat, so close
to holy, so far from sacred. Sin between
my legs, meaning nestled in the space
above, a hole waiting to be filled.
Empty in every way that counts,
trespasses unforgiven. Vessel for life
but blaspheme to call myself creator.
You will know, they said, one day,
but all I see is shabby set pieces
and lines from a script, memorized,
twisted and beaten like metal to build
a gate that creaks with every entrance
and each scorned exit.
Hollow Place
Savannah Cooper (she/her) is a leftist bisexual agnostic and a slow-ripening disappointment to her Baptist parents. You can almost always find her at home, reading a novel or cuddling with her dogs and cat. A Pushcart Prize nominated poet, her work has been previously published in Parentheses Journal, Midwestern Gothic, Mud Season Review, and multiple other publications.