Proselytism – a poem by Cate Latimer

Proselytism

I suppose I subscribed
to the religion 
of childhood,
an age of strawberries
cut by a mother’s tongue
and skinned knees
deemed holy
in their destruction 

It was slow at first,
but I was welcomed to the priesthood
as I pressed 
the empty luck of sidewalk pennies
to my palms 
and I was baptized 
by an August heat
that wrapped its fruit-stained fingers
across my eyes and asked 
if I could feel 
the sun pooling at my feet,
tasting my skin
with a gentle thirst

but when the preachers came to my door
preaching a renewed girlhood,
I couldn’t slip so easily into the past
with memory’s resuscitation,
a push on her chest
and the touch of her lips to mine,
a breath
a resurrection

because what am I if not an obsessive creature 
bound to belief

who didn’t need a repeat,
but a chance
to let her tired body find its way 
to the earth
and watch the moon consume itself
anew

Cate Latimer is a poet from Portland, Oregon. She is a first-year at Brown University studying English and Urban Studies and the founder and publisher at Stepping Stone Publishing, a student-focused publishing company. Her work has been nationally recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.