for Mea

Mary said no one needs to walk
on their knees in the desert
repenting,
but no one told me that
so I dragged this tired body over glass—
bloodied my hands
through every hard place,
every hallway, every field & old house
& every room I could find I hid in
for a thousand years—
until I sobered up long enough to open
the door back in-
to myself (the doorknob
had horses on it,
can you believe that? horses).
Bodies really are the miracle—they stay,
even after all of it, they stay.

Audrey Gidman is a queer poet living in Maine. Her poems can be found or are forthcoming in Rust + Moth, Luna Luna, SWWIM, Okay Donkey, The Inflectionist Review, Rogue Agent, Wax Nine, Juke Joint, perhappened, The Shore, The West Review and elsewhere. She serves as Assistant Poetry Editor for Gigantic Sequins and her chapbook, body psalms, winner of the Elyse Wolf Prize, is forthcoming from Slate Roof Press. Twitter // @audreygidman