Featured Writer Devon Balwit
Penitent
How many times have you hurled your Bible
into the river, yet crept out to buy another,
like a drunk hooch in a sack?
Just a psalm, just the Gospel of John,
just the parables you can make sense of.
You paddle in them like that sickie
in the pool at Siloam, scales flaking
from your born-blind eyes. Go
and sin no more, Jesus said.
Sorry, but that will be never.
Like a lit fuse, you sizzle
till you detonate. Having made you,
he should know what you are.
About the writer:
Devon Balwit‘s most recent collection is titled A Brief Way to Identify a Body (Ursus Americanus Press). Her individual poems can be found or are upcoming in Jet Fuel, The Cincinnati Review, Tampa Review, Rattle, Apt (long-form issue), Grist, and Oxidant Engine among others. Devon Balwit is the O:JA&L Featured Writer for June 2019.
Image: Crucifixion (Verspottung) by Emil Nolde (1867-1956). Oil on canvas. 220 x 193 cm. 1912. Public domain.
