SUNDAY SCHOOL CHILDREN
By Claire Emery
Your Sunday best never fit you right
You preferred your tar to come from cigarettes
Instead of inside the plays of a leather-bound book of judgement
You can flick a lighter more comfortably than the thin thin almost transparent pages of a bible
You sat perched in a tree with whole fruit and ants and your brothers
Chain smoking
as the sun rose
as the sun stayed
as the sun set
the Sunday school children would throw rocks—pebbles in actuality
But children always make things bigger, Bigger, BIGGER
Because they are so small to start with
So there you sat
And flicked the butt of the cigarette with the grace of a dancer
To burn down the building
To burn down the house of God and the horrid Sunday school children inside
Because rocks to fire is an acceptable leap to children
Like hopscotch of a power struggle
I hope you won
About the Author
Claire is a self-driving poet, writer, and debater with a passion for philosophy and critical thinking. She is a prairie child at heart and her favorite flower is a purple cone flower. She loves nature walks, reading and her four cats.