On Wednesdays you step into the hell fire streets
of stark red posters, of old men preaching
and gray women in floor length corduroy skirts
[who’s the sinner now] passing brochures
for the Good Lord and you praise the Lord today
because you need to be saved from your Dad
and these loud people passing pamphlets
on sunny sidewalks you once thought safe
so you toss pennies into a fountain, have
a fruitless conversation with their boss
that ends with you poorer in time and money
your Mom crying with a glint of hope
that because you’re talking to God now
somehow everything will be OK — but you still
kissed Spencer Adams on the cheek
in third grade and poor God can’t change that
so you toss pennies from your bedroom floor
into the trashcan because you think a clean room
creates opportunity [for sex] and the mind
is your room so there should be lots of sex in it
even if the barkeep tonight isn’t interested, even
if your Dad wants you to transfer to a Godly school
or at least a school far away from East Coast Sinners
which you think is a cool name for a band
and then you hold Peter’s hand on the way home
from the bar at two in the morning and inspect
his buzzed brown hair, his dimples, his green-blue
eyes, discuss the original 150 Pokémon to get a sense
of who this man really is while you smell
his Syracuse zoo t-shirt and cigarette smoke and
sweat and alcohol and everything your Dad told you
was supposed to be treacherous and forbidden.
Matty Bennett is a second-year MFA candidate in creative writing at Virginia Tech.