YOU HAVE TO TAKE THE BIBLE WITH THE BEAR

Exodus 3:2 – The stuffing machine whirls with soft muscle tissue.
Luke 24:32 – “First, rub its heart between your hands to warm it up.”
1 Samuel 3:10 – “Next, put its heart to your ear so it’ll be a good listener.”
Isaiah 35:3 – “Now, rub its heart on your knee so it’ll be there when you fall.”
Song of Solomon 1:2 – “Give its heart a kiss to add your love.”
Ezekiel 36:26 – “Close your eyes, make a wish—now rub its heart to yours.”
Genesis 2:22 – It’s taken from me to the machine, alive, to be given shape.
Isaiah 14:14 – “Isn’t this magical? Being like God?”

ON DEATH ROW, I THOUGHT FOOD DIED, TOO

in the decompensating stomachs
of murderers, of molesters—
of the innocent.

Last meals prepare
those suspended
in unlife to end,

satisfying the human knee-jerk
to bring something to death
with us. At the end, we want

Hugo’s chapters-long street scenes,
fresh flowers forever on the sill,
and a large, slow meal well-wined—

like a good, old dog who’s crawled
into your stomach to dream.
But then I remember that

acid in a corpse is still acid
just as a tree can murder
its friends by falling, unwitnessed.

The unseen hydrolytic work
eats for a rigored
mouth like chelating

junk cars,
back-yarded and cinderblocked
for spite.

Thom C. Addington (he/him) is a queer, Catholic, rural Southern writer with Appalachian roots raised on Rappahannock land in King & Queen County, Virginia. He currently serves as Associate Dean of Business, Humanities, & Public Service at Reynolds Community College. His work appears in Outskirts Literary Journal, Soundings East Magazine, and elsewhere.