Into Heathen's Heaven Poem by Katelyn Hinman

condensed crowded words in pink ink on sallow skin
trite innumerable nothings

scrub and scrub half-hearted lies from indignant palms
saliva substitutes soap
as electric hurried fury rises throughout
deft jaggedly-bitten fingernails

an exemplary cadence
scoured and soured
this hemorrhage seeping through loose bandages
into heathen's heaven-a godless void

(release)

scrub scrub scrub
this immaculate virgin light
shining through imprinted crescents
in taut hands, these tools of treachery
copernicus and newton disproved

alas-relief!

yet hands remain stained
fearfully fashioned
with inkghosts of paraphrased plath