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Emily Ransdell
AFTER A FALLING OUT WITH A FRIEND
Be the church, says the banner outside
the food bank in Forest Grove. Forgive often.
I leave my canned goods in the bin
marked Unperishables and head toward the car.
Bird after bird swoops down like an omen,
pecking at sidewalk crumbs and bits of foil.
What isn’t perishable? I don’t know
what a church is, much less how to be one,
how to do the forgiving the sign so brightly
commands. I remember they taught us
about stars and shepherds, bushes that burst
into flame. They taught us a song
about a little light we were gonna let shine.
Our cabinful of church-camp girls preferred
late-night radio, dancing past curfew
and practicing kissing, our flashlights
casting shadows of our just-blossomed
bodies on the pinewood walls.
Be the church, I say now aloud, words
newly sweet in my mouth. Forgive often.
I think of my old college friend down
in Florida, the misunderstandings finally
boiled over, who was owed what
since the eighties, our silence now.
I worry about her house in Bradenton
after the hurricane and the flood,
yet I have been too stubborn to call.
Be the church, the sign says.
Be the rain that sugars the grass
and washes the weight off memory.
Be the box lined with velvet
that cradles the jewel.
About the writer:
Emily Ransdell’s first collection, One Finch Singing, was the winner of the Lewis Award from Concrete Wolf Press and was published in 2023. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Rattle, New Letters, Terrain, Poetry Northwest and elsewhere. Emily lives in the Pacific Northwest, dividing her time between Camas, Washington, and Manzanita, Oregon, where she teaches poetry writing at the Hoffman Center for the Arts.
Image: Chapel. AI-assisted digital image. Proprietary image. 2024.
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