by Devon Neal

Three times a weekend it was blue jeans
that snapped shut and choked my waist.
Twice, a still-moist body out of the shower
and into button shirts with tight collars.
We were Pentecostal, so Mom took off her jeans
for a long skirt and my dirt-kneed sister
into a dress with lace. Three times a weekend,
men talking into a sweat, hiccuping
for air, clouds growing in their armpits.
Hands raised as if to feel the air;
voices moaning glory and praise him and yes.
It was almost a relief when piano keys rippled
through the PA, acoustic guitars with their rustic thrum.
I knew how to sweat; I knew how to ask questions
no one would hear. “You’ll know,” they said,
but I didn’t know. Sunday nights I’d lie in bed
and wonder. What if you can’t stop thoughts?
Sometimes when I prayed, I felt like I was pushing
rocks out of my skin. My closed eyes were knotted trees.
I could never just know; can you show me?
Was this street sign here to remind me
of scripture, glowing neon in the headlights?
Was there a message in the broken store lights,
the local business commercials on TV,
shot through with static lightning? One night,
I whispered in the dark, “If I’m saved,
let the coins on the nightstand fall tonight
and I will find them in the floor in the morning.”
I closed my eyes and waited, ready to know.

Devon Neal (he/him) is a Kentucky-based poet whose work has appeared in many publications, including HAD, Stanchion, Livina Press, The Storms, and The Bombay Lit Mag, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. He currently lives in Bardstown, KY with his wife and three children.