At some point we thought,
“the mind’s a machine,”
and made it true.
But when you’re God,
you breathe flowers into the world
and forget where you placed them.
Too many to count,
to keep counting.
I wish there were a word for it
that did not mean neglect
or blissful ignorance.
Someday, we’ll have words
for the kind of faith
borne of deserts, dying to know
sensations beyond thirst.
A word which means: a place
for pillows near pillars of salt.
Only when we’re God
will we learn to coax words forth
from clogged milk ducts into
the wax bodies that pray for them.
I can only know enough to dwindle,
enough to ebb for many miles
and keep those meanings tied to tart,
forbidden currants in the garden.
I think that I would let them
stain my lips and fingertips,
let them ruin me like a selkie
becoming tired of her animal body.
I might tempt the bees to taste them
if it could turn their wings
to selenite, their honey to carnelian,
their bodies to something
not meant to fly, but beautiful.
Jessica Khailo (she/her) lives in the state of Washington with her husband, two children, and one very good dog. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys complaining on walks through the woods, knitting, creating dodgy artwork, and singing her heart out like no one is listening. Her work has appeared in The Citron Review and is forthcoming this fall in Coffin Bell Journal, Gastropoda, Jupiter Review, and Amethyst Review.