MARY

by Lexi Pelle

“Spanish Church” by Steve Johnson

For three hours, I was Mary.

I wore the white dress, blue

cape, itchy rope belt cinched

at my waist. I cuddled the cold

plastic Jesus, bobbed him up

and down like he might

soon grow restless and need

me to ferry him over

the seam of his faux reality.

The priest was down the hall

gathering the rest of the nativity

props so I continued

to practice my performance.

I stuffed the hard boy up my dress

and screamed like I’d heard

the women giving birth on TV do.

A clean scream, loud and bright.

My throat hurt with what I hadn’t known

I’d been waiting for. Barbed sound

streaking naked down the halls.

I continued because it made me

and the other kids laugh,

but when the priest returned and

called my performance perverse

they all turned quietly away.

Here’s what really gets me:

The priest flinched when I handed

back the son of God I’d made

hot with my skin. The heat

not like a sun-slashed floor

in the afternoon, more like

a just-left toilet seat. Or a lake,

cold when you jump in, the summer

air colder when you get out.

Some truth in my touch bartered

with nothingness and seared us both.

Lexi Pelle was the winner of the 2022 Jack McCarthy Book Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Ninth Letter, SWWIM, Sucarnochee Review, and Zenaida. Her debut book, Let Go With The Lights On, will be released on May 3.

IG/Twitter: @lexipellepoetry

Website: Lexipelle.org