Sticky raspberry soda bloodstains stuck to white

sheets will come out just fine in the wash, you say.

But we don’t have time to wash away our sins now.

Instead, I get a few splinters when I help you board up

our windows, and you let me hold the hammer so

I can feel like I’ve done something. We tie up lawn chairs,

stockpile sandbags, and store our chalices up high.

The marble countertop is a barren wasteland of

sugar packets, tangled dog leashes, my graded tests

with smiley face stickers tacked to the front. I can’t

zip my suitcase all the way, but I can take a video

of the house before we leave. Just in case. Nothing

here is holy until you anoint your leather-bound bible

with a chapped-lip kiss. Maybe it’ll be salvation,

since you seem to think so, and you’re never ever

wrong, Dad. We might not come back to a house, you

say and whisper a half-memorized our father to the

deaf bible. It’s a long car ride, busier roads than normal at

a ten P.M. held between my lips like a breath untaken,

just like the half-melted eucharist wafers I spat out in

the church sink. the hurricane is to baptize our mortal coast,

but I know we will not be born anew. all the apostles remain,

unlike god. we cannot be betrayed. I need to make a

confession. No, I don’t want to be resurrected in the eye

of the storm. I want the infernal cyclone to swallow my bare

bones, tear up splinters from church pews, and i want houses

to be ripped from the ground, to swallow cotton candy insulation,

guzzle the last gasoline in town, close down storefronts, down

electricity lines like flaming swords. Except

when we unlock the chipped-paint door, the roof still stands

and no water seeped through. The garage opens while our

generator starts to hum. Still, the washing machines were broken.

You held my hand as we stepped inside. Squeezed tighter when

we saw fences blown to bits. Raspberry soda bloodstains remain.