The Book of What
all that remains of Matthew
a
tomb
at dawn
is
like lightning
heaven
came down from heaven
and became like dead men
now I have told you
the
end
The Book of Sin
all that remains of Galatians
someone
caught
sin
by the
hand
someone
means
my body
I
share
the
letters
and
avoid
the flesh
do
the marks
mean
anything
The Book of Lips
all that remains of Philippians
I
say
your
names
again
I
have learned
the secret
of
well fed
peace
I ask you
to
be
the same
always
if
you
stand
at my side
my
love
will be
as
long
as
God
Katie Manning is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Whale Road Review and an Associate Professor of Writing at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. She is the author of Tasty Other, which won the 2016 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, and four chapbooks, including The Gospel of the Bleeding Woman. Her poems have appeared in Fairy Tale Review, New Letters, Poet Lore, Verse Daily, and many journals and anthologies. Find her online at www.katiemanningpoet.com.
‘These poems are from a project-in-process that uses the last chapter of each book of the Bible as a word bank. I began this project in protest–I was tired of people taking language from the Bible out of context and using it against others as a weapon–but as I continued I realized that this process of creating poems also resembles the practice of Lectio Divina, divine reading’
