searching for divinity on a hot sunday morning circa 2008
the plate is passed
around the circle:
one by one, the grown-ups
tear pads of flesh
from a thick white loaf.
the magpies gossip
& i’m clenching my stomach
to stop it from warbling,
trying my best
to contemplate the cold of hell
or a blaze of purity,
the promise of a childhood
in god’s arms.
porcelain meets camphor wood
in its own good time.
backs soften against seats
loosening into
a collective sigh
that walks itself
hand in smiling hand
towards its own end,
easy as the groove of a needle
curving just outside itself,
content in the certainty
of returning, always—
a thin voice pricks the air,
rushes the first line of a hymn
that wobbles, then billows.
our singing is stamped
with humility, like a wine-mouth
lipping a white teacup
warm with the memory
of twenty steady hands.
our singing sounds
like a melting towards
the self
or the centre of a persian rug
or the inevitability of a roast lunch
or its own blessed chorus.
legs crossed tight
as twirling vines, i press
white through red,
bow my head
and pop another mentos.
Charlotte is an emerging editor and writer living on Wurundjeri land in Melbourne, where’s she’s studying a Master of Writing and Publishing at RMIT and working in educational publishing. In their spare time, they enjoy reading/writing/thinking about queer literature, singing in a choir, and eating olives straight from the jar. Her work has been published in Baby Teeth Journal and Meniscus, as well as student publications like Farrago and the Bowen Street Press’s Bound anthology.
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