Our Father

(who many debate art in some version of heaven and on
earth) give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us
our capering. This city blushes when it gets ahold of the hands
of another night, when it wears dawn like the tulle it was cut out
to wear. Father, forgive those who trespass the tinsel we all know
and love that you’ve braided into your hair. And hallowed be
your wish I wish you forgave in yourself. You deny your origin
of temptations, an old photograph of Chicago, that green river
prancing around March like heaven and earth. Like art. This city
rubbed down to utterly rare finds. This makes you want to fall
from kingdom come, thy will be done and write those back home
to say, I believe in the hot beef sandwiches here. The rush
of sky-scrapers celebrate your marriage to this city, witness
postcards flooding in like our hips dripping with skirts
and sweat in all corners of a dance hall. The wind is your
necklace. The pigeons toss bread crumbs and bear your ring.
And I’m in an apartment with a view of this Great Lake,
of a man or a woman. I could be in love. Love a man or woman
you, Father, deny yourself. And you will write home from here.

Ash Goedker

Ash Goedker hails from Northern Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She received her MFA in poetry at the University of Idaho where she was also the Editor-in-Chief at Fugue. She currently teaches at Nicholls State University. She was the winner of the University of Idaho’s Academy of American Poets Prize, and was a finalist in the 2016 Indiana Review ½ K Prize. Her poems have been published in Indiana Review, Midwest Review, Third Point Press, velvet-tail, and others.