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Love, Religion, and Ankles
The surf laps and your feet
fingers the color of tranquility bite at your ankles
when
rain
falls from the sky’s forgiving blue
your pores open to catch the drops
like a baby in a cradle
A sacrilegious icon of naivety
Your Madonna
Her rosy cheeks and small porcelain body
In the pocket of your cargo shorts
You’re not even sure if you’re religious
But, three easy guitar chords make you feel
A lot of love
Maybe that’s what religion is
You drive to the Seven Eleven in your brown thunderbird
The light of the streetlamps reflect off of the glossy paint
A soft glare
You go in for cigarettes and a vitamin water
You don’t usually smoke
But you don’t usually drink vitamin waters either
You see a blue plastic rosary
You buy that too
It costs one dollar and twenty three cents
You’re still not sure if you’re religious or not
Driving down Highway 1 at night
The briny sea air turning from a breeze to a wind in your hair
As your car accelerates
With your left arm resting on the window sill
And a cigarette in your hand
The smoke getting sucked out the window
The sweet aftertaste of your mango vitamin water mingling with the smoky taste of the cigarette
lingering in your mouth
Your rosary in one pocket and your Madonna in the other
Maybe this is religion
Can religion be reduced to a set of predetermined beliefs?
Maybe it’s wrong to feel a religious presence in
cigarettes, driving fast, 99 Cents store religious icons, and vitamin water.
But right now you can’t think of anything else that feels so
Holy
Like waking up to a bird
Warbling
In the peaceful morning
Like the trees outside
Trees like the oak trees that grow in
Your aunt’s old neighborhood
Now she lives in a condo
And somebody else lives in your
second home
Their kids swim in the pool, splashing water all over the hot pavement
The heat erasing their crooked smiley faces and lopsided hearts
Moments later
Adults that aren’t your family drinking wine on the long patio
Sun glinting off of the stemless glasses that they hold
In their hands with the veins
that are beginning
to stick out
in late middle age
With the hammock rocking in the sweet breeze
Watching the sun set
Over the yellow hills
Dotted with oak trees
Like cows gone out to pasture
A pasture like the thousands you drove past
On a road trip to
Yellowstone
You half expected to see yellow stones
Yellow like the sunlight streaming through your open window
None of the stones
Were yellow at all
They were gray
Like the color your mom’s eyes turn
When her mouth stretches in a tight line
When you’ve dissapointed her
Which lately
Feels like all of the time
But, take another sip of your vitamin water, pull another heavy drag on your cigarette
Blow it out the window
You can’t blow rings
But it still looks
Pretty cool
You remain unsure about your religion
I guess that’s okay
Just
Feel the engine turn over under your seat
And drive back
Home
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