Seven months after you paint my bedroom Marquee/Eggshell
the halos we wear are hollowed by heartbreak,
and faith is a relic meant to decorate dresser drawers.
we wear silver linings like jewelry.
keep daylight preserved in glass jars
should we forget what answered prayers taste like.
obedience to God is a weight our love was not
made to bear, so I took up the wreckage
and asked my shadow to follow me—
your poems are pressed beneath
my leather-bound Bible
so I may not mistake them for scripture—
it is hard to mourn the dead
when they insist on living inside of you.
By day, Julia Bonadies is an 8th-grade English teacher at Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts Middle, and by night she is a professional writing tutor at Manchester Community College. Her work most recent work can be found in The Chronicle, Halfway Down the Stairs, and NEATE’s The Leaflet.
