by Holly Joy Wertman

I found God at the Broadway Junction stop
headed home from a week of reluctant days
dripping R&B jams from a karaoke speaker
amid the heavy stirred exhaust so invasive
it fermented water holy in each of my pores.
I picked up religion as I waited for paradise
standing clear of the closing doors, o please,
bless me with cranked up freon conditioning
gusts that I will start complaining about soon.
Just the way Lord separated land from water
and It! Was! Good! for a minute—until man
decided to create swimming pools because
we missed how it once felt to maybe drown.
My ears are melting from being pounded
by bootleg bass beat "Jesus died for my sins"
but I guess not for long because the next J
is 17 minutes away and the End of Days
fire and brimstone temperature forecasts
flash on screen behind me, but I don’t turn
because knowing makes everything worse.
There is not a soul who could convince me
it didn't go just like this: Eve ate that apple
and someone spun her around a few times,
sent her train back to its home station, until
she found herself in a far more terrible place
than she was before—still Eden, now aware.

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Holly Joy Wertman is the Director of a guaranteed income and peer support program for parents living in NYC homeless shelters. A recent graduate of Columbia Mailman, her work has been published across research, nonprofit, and journalistic platforms. She also has an upcoming essay in the Rocky Horror Picture Show anthology to be published by the Feminist Press.