catapult magazine

Communion

by L.L. Barkat

Young men pass me by, 
prefer cracker guns to plastic
flesh, pull triggers
that pop like an Amen, can
we say Amen. Young girls
see possibility, not in my
eyes that probe for
communion with their
childlike hearts, but in
flesh they can hold,
bare my breasts
to cross cold floors.
I turn my branded back
to them as if to say to
girlish priests, this is 
my body, break, leave.