In one corner of the basement, a couple recreates La Pieta in a beige recliner, shrine sanctified by tongues. We receive Necco wafers & boxed merlot under strings of Christmas lights, neon spikes of strobe. In the seconds between shadows: take this body & bring it into Sunday, electric chords thrumming. A luminous mystery, how our mouths move in the dark. Take this blood & turn it to wine. Take this wine & turn it to water, the work of human hands & this makes us miraculous.
Shannon Austin is a writer from Baltimore, MD, with an MFA in poetry from UNLV. Her work has appeared in Drunk Monkeys, American Chordata, After the Pause, The Shore, and elsewhere.