Wrestle XV

Wrestle XV
By Taryn Patricia Murphy

ours is a book
doomed to a cracked spine at only one place
chapter 7: God.
parked in vacant lots
engine off
chasing each other’s intellects
in circles like the heavenly spheres.
but it doesn’t feel so heavenly.
i have this pit in my stomach, you say.
(like a peach’s or a lion’s?)
we can’t agree on anything.
the sliding doors to the department store
open and shut, open and shut
but no one is there.
i remember i once enjoyed these talks about religion,
before so much was at stake—
before we were at stake.
a moth shatters its brains into a nearby lantern
a suicidal last attempt to enter into the light.
(is that what we are doing?)

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Taryn Patricia Murphy
Poet & Student at Hillsdale College

Photography by Raffo Perez