[PALMISTRY]
I am doing everything
but processing the Sunday sermon
given from the Zoom pulpit.
I am thinking about how someday,
this era will feel so impossibly
long ago. Then I am thinking
about how that day feels so impossibly
far away. I catch words
that sound important but drop
the message, not having heard
the other words, also important,
connecting them. I miss them
because I am looking outside,
hearing the dull thud of a bug
flying into and into and into my windowpane.
I don’t know what he is, only that he’s persistent.
This one I know—a robin has arrived on the branch,
head tilted, beak open, little song.
Someone is prophesying, but I miss who.
I miss if they are revered or disregarded.
If I had to guess, I’d say disregarded.
It’s a bitterness inside me, too much exposure,
throughout overlapping catastrophes,
to how we’ve responded to the words
of every prophet who has looked at the palm
of the world and told the misfortunes
of those on the frontlines, so essential we continually risk their lives;
and of the rapidly dwindling honeybees, the bleaching coral reefs.
I’m missing the sermon, but I’m thinking of scripture.
God said let there be light, and there was;
said let there be sky, and land, and sea, and
there was, and was, and was;
said let there be man that cares for it all, and
there almost was.
Katelyn Grimes
Katelyn Grimes (she/her) studied English and creative writing, psychology, and history at Carthage College. Originally from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, she now lives in Chicago with her husband and their two cats. She works for an immigration law firm while continuing to write fiction and poetry. Her work has appeared in Capsule Stories and TIMBER.