Magdalene and the Ampersand
Magdalene and the Ampersand
Jessica Lynn Skinner
I sat across from the priest in a chocolate shop,
eating my grief and truffle.
So you have a broken heart,
he says without me having to first.
He is a holy man and knows sadness is held safely
within walls which smell like chocolate.
I do not recall what we said other than,
Sometimes, absence is a needle with no lesson.
And, maybe always, Christ is nothing more than contingency.
The last time I was shattered
I was eating donuts with my favorite poet.
She told me to be all of the things,
life is too short for compartments.
With sweetness in my mouth
I have found myself sad
and in the company of the wise
enough times to pay attention:
there is always an ampersand to sorrow.
Jessica Lynn Skinner
Poet & Actor
Jessica is an actor and a poet currently living back-and-forth between both Portland, OR and Los Angeles, CA. She finds her identity in the love for family and friends, art, the Pacific Northwest, paradoxes, dried mangoes, the changing of seasons, mysticism, and the holy messiness of being a human being doing this thing we call life.
Photography by Jessica Pineda