There is no pope by Nick Rossi
hanging in the hall of my parents’ house
but there used to be a half bust of Mary
above their headboard when I was a kid. Having learned religion from story cards,
that always creeped me out. Ghost white porcelain face floating above their bed,
eyes pupilless and blank. Deeply scary
the way only Catholic iconography can be.
The crucifix taught me the body is soft
and implicitly shameful, but also valuable
as a sacrifice. My father’s hands, the same lesson. A couple years after his confirmation,
a company mower severed his pinky finger
off at the palm. Decades later, a bare press roller stripped the skin tip from the pointer
on the same hand. Carpal tunnel stiffened
the rest. Guess it’s good there’s no prayer except to payday, no worship but in work.
Even after all this scarred flesh, I became
even more devout than my dad, my faith
blind and honest and wrapped up in self fulfilling prophecy, in some stoic bullshit. Definition through denial, never much
more than a salve, something soft offered
as the other hand clasps nails. The carrot,
the stick, the treadmill. I chase them less
with every passing shift. I am becoming
less infatuated with my own mythology.
september 8th, 2020Nick Rossi is a co-founder / editor / designer at Sobotka Literary Magazine / Ursus Americanus Press / No Rest Press. He lives and works in Chicago, IL.