Pride

we’ve heard it before.
preached from wine-stained stained-glass in dusty sunlight from behind
confessional booths
through megaphones across cracked pavement behind a colliding police and picket line
and across the broken bread,
between the beans and rice
of dinner tables

i saw her first on the street she winked at me from atop a float
and I swear,
it was Religious
how the sky burst apart like a miracle

i saw her son in a bathroom in a bar
beneath my best friend
giddy and wild eyed and blinking neon,
red spilled on the white tiled floor
glitter smeared across his face like
glowing ashes

she called me over to the bar
sipping a drink I didn’t know the name of,
not that I knew the name of anything,
i’d never sinned before.
she smiled like my tia after a family party
and danced like my mother
disco glitter night instead of afternoon kitchen sunlight

be not afraid my child,
everyone’s first pride is hard
this sin is sometimes not enough

be not afraid my child
pride’s a sin I can forgive
for those who died for love,

she glances over her shoulder
at my stumbling giddy blushing friend,
and her son
smiling through thorns and blood,

for those who died for love,
we live
​and our kingdom will have no end
​
© Isabella Hansen. All Rights Reserved.