Blow Your Smoke

Smoke was a thing that was meant to be blown, she said at your age – your mother’s age when
she educated you – and slammed the iron on the board and stepped onto the balcony to count the drops of rain. You spun the wheel from wool to silk and silk to cotton while on the TV someone cried the church caught fire; the pastor got out just in time. God had come to him and demanded that the congregation build a sacred palace with a plasma screen above the altar. God dropped a match.

Church was where you used to go on Sundays, humming melodies because you didn’t memorize
the lines. You stopped singing when the pastor blew his holy hokum in your face. If there was a
lord why’d he make you bleed between the legs? Big men liked to brag, your mother said, and
the sky man was the biggest of them all; he stuffed his crypt with wants exhaled by lambs and
sinners.

You kept your wishes in your head, but never at the supermarket. Begged the atuas of
merchandise to gift you plastic ponies and pink, private sandals. She said wishes were just
hypothermic prayers; only the one percent burnt water for the thawing. The rest of us found our
truths in smoke.

You warmed your hope on homespun gospel. Until she handed down the iron and stepped away
to count her omnipotent clouds. You pushed the button for the steamer and puffed made-up
words into the vapor while on the TV someone said god blesses all.

Anne Freier is a writer, poet, and medical editor. She studied literature and writing with the Writers Studio and the Poetry School London. She is currently working on a debut collection of short stories and chapbooks of poetry. Some of her work has been published by Miracle Monocle and Passengers Journal. Her first creative non-fiction book was commissioned by indie press Beshu.