Tuesday Poem

A Stranger's Arms

In any dream of confession
I enter the chapel barefoot
Having come straight
From a stranger's arms
On the crooked side of town
Where a song came to us in fragments
From a safe room.
“…down to Georgia
Gonna weep no more.”

It's okay
That I have lost my shoes
And wear only a crepe dress
Although it's 10 days
Before Christmas.
I am warm with wine
And crossing myself
With tepid holy water.

When I speak
To the smoke screen
Of the priest's face
I tell him
How the stars
Drag me down with wishing,
How I am reluctant to be
Only one song
In the whole universe.

by Corrine De Winter
from The Southern Cross Review #56