Bill C., for atonement—erasure, and: The Starfish and the Sponge
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Bill C., for atonement—erasure, and: The Starfish and the Sponge
Bill C., for atonement—erasure
For un-original sin
Our father. Thy name will be doneon earth. It is in heaven.Give this our daily bread for s our debts,as we forgive not temptationbut evilfor th is kingdom:power and glory for men.
The Starfish and the Sponge
At seventeen Karen's suctioningInvertebrates 101, top of her classper usual. Crown-of-thorns starfish:second largest sea stars anywhere.Venomous predators with piercing spines.She dreams stethoscopes, a white jacketembroidered with her name: Star girl.
Tube sponges—common in the Caribbean.Barnacles and sponges cling to anystable object. "Sessile" means they don'tmove anywhere. At seventeen Khadijah'sdissecting soaps and game shows on the tube,while vacuuming a chicken bone and fries.They filter feed, as through spider webs,
extracting food from any passing current.The Great Barrel Sponge's cavitycan hide inside a person. Khadijah's filled,again. Sea squirts look like sponges. Her Cecelyat three squats on the floor, tangled in yarn,with glee clacking mommy's knitting needles,following after mother, as children will. [End Page 103]
Vernita Hall is the author of Where William Walked: Poems About Philadelphia and Its People of Color (Aquarius, 2019), winner of the Willow Books Grand Prize for Poetry and of the Robert Creeley Prize from Marsh Hawk Press, and The Hitchhiking Robot Learns About Philadelphians (Moonstone, 2017), winner of the Moonstone Chapbook Contest. Her poems and essays appear or are forthcoming in numerous journals and anthologies. Hall holds an MFA in creative writing from Rosemont College and serves on the poetry review board of Philadelphia Stories.
