Penance Song Cito DeNegre The bells ring clear for the sweetest sin inside the jars where the flesh ferment, sits my brain under sunshines glint, this is the rest I represent. Hanging from the oldest bough, of a young tree, oaken, a burnt-in kiss. Surrounded by a searing crowd, my floating body- a will-o’-wisp. She knows pain but no purity. I know not sacrilege nor security. She saw terror on the torpid tree, I saw her in her harrowing. A burning bush blocks the mountain view, my body’s veil is the vortice smoke. Hymns are hummed from the putrid pew, an oriel omen is an honest cloak. To shade me from a warren weather, to know we were the best together, even when the air boils each tearyou’re still queen of the atmospherethe ashen, ashen atmosphere. October 2021
d Onion River Review d 29
