by Anna Tjeltveit
And suddenly we are comforting each other,
my hand on your shoulder, yours on my heart,
resting in uncertainty. “Your faith is enough,”
I say, though now I am an unbeliever.
You hold me closer, but silence sits between us still.
I believed in you, behind the altar,
yours the pulpit, yours the pews.
In the children’s homily, I hugged you close
until all I saw was cool green silk
and the world smelled like ointment and sage.
“I praise you and I bless you,” I told you once—
but you laughed, We only say that to God.
When did I see god? I saw you each week.
Your face was beautiful in the stained-glass light.
Before you were formed in the womb I knew you.
Before you were born I set you apart.
I prayed for you the day I turned thirty-five.
Come to me, as the angels to Elizabeth.
Bring me the world’s wonders again.
When I was a girl, wrapped in God’s love,
I said, “This is my body, I will give it for you.”
I gave you your ears, your hands, your lips.
How could I fail to give you this?
Holding each other, I no longer fit
as a child against your chest.
Someday we will find new shapes.
I will take your foot in my hands in the white tub,
the thin blue vein running from ankle to toe.
You will sit in the chair, your head bent heavenward.
As I kneel at your feet, connecting you to earth.
Father Memories Acrylic
by JC Chen Henderson
Anna Tjeltveit is an English and German teacher and a recent graduate of Wesleyan University. Her work has appeared in Hive Avenue Literary Magazine and The Lavender. She currently lives in Bremen, Germany.
JC Chen Henderson publishes fiction, poetry, and visual art in literary reviews and poetry magazines. Her work appears in journals such as Fourteen Hills, Poetry East, Sunspot Literary Journal, Freshwater Review, The Pointed Circle, The Clackamas Review, and SLANT, to name a few. Henderson strives to express spirituality and sexuality in her work. She has sold hundreds of her paintings.
Ignatian Literary Magazine 