No God in Texas
but I hear hymns everywhere. in the flecked cotton fields
tangled with bags of Doritos and Styrofoam
Sonic cups and in the church bells that clang through
Sunday. in the coffee shop where I sip gritty matcha
and see personalized bibles cracked open, onion skin
pages flickering in fluorescents. I find something like God
in the horse’s gallop, in the slow chew of green. I find
some peace but attribute it to nothing but the sky—the West
Texas cloud cover dappled into candy-colored blues.
when the missionaries yell on the cobblestone campus
quad and when the city votes to ban abortion, I feel a dull
knock in my gut—empty echo of my body making its way
through a lightning storm. when storm chasers share a
picture of a supercell cloud, commenters say you can’t deny
God’s existence after seeing this but they must know
this is just weather—slick wind swirling from all sides
and gathering in a heap. maybe God is just weather—
where the overgrown hedge thrashes against
my window, where streets flood and swallow and fill
the hollow spaces. and I understand the need to satisfy
the necessaries. sometimes this weather feels like desire.
by Sara Ryan
from The Ecotheo Review