Biblical Proportions

Biblical Proportions

Casie Dodd

Sometimes, I sit on my grandmother’s bed to remember Bible story sleepovers.

When I was patient, she’d wake up singing and discard
Cain and Abel for Samson and Delilah.

Uncomfortable silences followed questions about slaves
and concubines, met with nasal whistling.
I’d stare at the popcorn ceiling and develop
my own theories. I didn’t know then that beds could
be used for anything but church.

Her breathing helped me keep time to the stories as I retold them
to the crickets chirping outside her window and named them all for Joseph’s brothers.

I’d hope that Reuben’s torn clothes shared something of the glory
of my grandmother’s frayed pillowcases.
Sorrow made them lovelier than their country meadow flowers because they held
secrets of nights she spent with other stories, picking at the threads
until they dissolved into neurons.
I never saw her cry, but I could
see ancient puddle stains blooming out of the hair on her chin.

I was a well as eager to be filled as the creek in her backyard
where I once sliced open my knee on a stick.
Red splashed into murky brown

and left a scar on my leg shaped
like the river where they drew Moses from the reeds.

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Casie Dodd
Poet & Writer

Casie lives in Arkansas with her husband and two children. Her writing has appeared in This Land, Dappled Things, and others. She is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of St. Thomas Houston. Find her on Twitter @CasieDodd.

Photography by Ainur Iman