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POETRY

After All, I Promised to Read St. Augustine

Megan Neville

True nuns infuse their pious infidelity into
kettles of abortion tea for anyone in need.
My father set out to raise a strong (but not

too strong) girl & by now I’ve scrubbed the enamel
from my teeth. It’s all in the elbow, you see? For closure
I need to ask a friend if we ever opened each other up,

but I don’t want to rend muscles in his chest again.
Most subway dust is human skin, specks of us crammed
in crevices like the togetherness everyone craves

but few will inconvenience themselves with. Alone
before her curtainless window my neighbor watches
Wheel of Fortune & disrobes to pose for nudes.

I’m confusing concupiscence & cornucopia again &
might as well indulge. I’ve thieved at least
a dozen pears but none have led to any god.

Megan Neville (she/her) is a writer and educator based in Cleveland, Ohio. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Academy of American Poets (Poets.org), Cherry Tree, West Branch, Pleiades, Wildness, McSweeney's, and elsewhere. Her full-length poetry collection The Fallow will be published by Trio House Press in 2022. She is an editorial assistant for Split Lip Magazine, and you can find her on Twitter @MegNev.
Artwork by Weston Frazor

Weston Frazor is a multidisciplinary artist who uses art historical reference and appropriation to examine and recontextualize the use of visual narrative in art. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. You can find his work on his website: www.westonfrazor.com.

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