Issue 05
poetry
“I Live Next Door to a Convent”
by Shannon Frost Greenstein
“Against the Grain” by Em Harriett
I live
next door
to a convent
cloistered souls in constant penitence seek an absolution not of this flesh
and sometimes
I feel starstruck
their asceticism a blind certainty of the outrageous demands of their God
in the hallowed presence
of their Faith.
Some days
I walk by
where they pray and sacrifice and suffer and abstain to better understand the Divine
sucking on the clandestine
cigarettes
smoke wafts in defiant tendrils over consecrated ground as I exhale
I will later pretend I’ve never purchased;
night falls
and something holy
seeps from the silent grounds
the ancient machinery of the Church dictating the difference between good and evil
as my children sleep
and I light a joint.
two millenia of conditioning fill me with Eve’s shame
Right next door
to this fortress of belief
human, all-too-human in our uniquely beautiful mistakes
are carpools and amazon packages and puddles in the driveway from our sprinkler;
while directly juxtaposed
against this piety
he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body
are all manner
of filthy urges
but Onan was wicked for spilling his seed unto the ground
to fuck on the balcony.
so I guess you’re fucked either way I am the Lord Your God
I live
next door
to a convent
where I sin and sin and live and sin
and sometimes
the whole thing
the omnipresent eyes of Augustine’s bitter legacy
just creeps me
the fuck out.
*
Shannon Frost Greenstein (she/her) resides in Philadelphia with her children, soulmate, and persnickety cats. She is the author of These Are a Few of My Least Favorite Things (Poetry, Really Serious Literature, 2022), Correspondence to Nowhere (Nonfiction, Bone & Ink Press, 2022), and An Oral History of One Day in Guyana (Fiction, Sledgehammer Lit, 2022). Shannon is a former PhD candidate in Continental Philosophy and a multi-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Pithead Chapel, Bending Genres, and elsewhere. Follow her at shannonfrostgreenstein.com or on Twitter at @ShannonFrostGre and Instagram at zarathustra_speaks.
Em Harriett is a queer author, illustrator, and photographer from New England. She is inspired by nature and enjoys writing speculative young adult fiction. Her photography has been published in Reservoir Road Literary Review and Portrait of New England. You can find her at emharriett.com or on Twitter @em_harriett.