The Church of Natural Phenomena
for Cia
Invoke the saints of blackberry thicket and honeysuckle bush.
Take up mud daubers and oysters as your anchorites.
For hymnals, birdsong; else, we lift our voices to thunder’s drumming.
Our sermons are on how to hear frog calls over the highway’s din,
where to escape the pollution of streetlights to visit with the stars,
the proper care and keeping of the human animal.
They are never overlong; they end when the first stomach growls.
When we go on pilgrimage, it is to where our grandmothers told girlhood fortunes
and skinned their knees and stole broken cigarettes and had crushes.
There are gods innumerable in all little things. Reach your hands high
in worship, like broadleaf poking through sidewalk cracks at the bus stop.
Smart, the Way Carrion Eaters Have to Be
Watch a turkey vulture catch the updraft
and spiral upwards into the air. Think about circles.
Think about how the vulture is not an animal’s end
but one stop in its eternal journey, an ethereal recycling plant.
Press dried flowers between the pages of a Baptist hymnal.
Eat a spam musubi your partner brought home from a date.
You’ve come to identify with the rubber rat sitting on the front desk at work.
Ravens are a war bird, known for following armies to battle
to feast on the soon-to-be corpses. When you eat dead things,
you learn to problem-solve. Relatable; not having water or power
for a month taught you the same thing. Confidence
gets you into the YMCA showers without a membership.
Jay Adams is a trans female writer born in Kentucky but now based out of New Jersey. She almost went to culinary school and still tortures her partner and her roommate with experimental meals and essays about food and eating. When not writing, cooking, or eating, she enjoys exploring nature. She hopes to find the Jersey Devil soon. This is her first creative publication.