SHE BREATHES CHRIST 
 

She breathes Christ

She exhales love

She wears long skirts

She walks into puddles

They say she is muddled

She attends her tutorials

She dredges the glasses from her bag

She whispers to the ghosts of St. Andrews

She has warm hands

They say it pulses forth

A heart that’s hearth

Marmalade and country butter

Thick bread crusty and coarse

Whipping cream

She reads journals

And weeps for Iraq

She sells cookies

And hides from CNN

All she is starting to make

Is crumbling to her face

Mistakes started with eggs

Boiled but they were not

Then came the knots in the mittens

She had skipped one

She played the grand bugle wrong

Struck a wrong chord at choir

She forgot the psalms

She left her Bible at Byre and was tempted on the way

By the clearance

She spent it all

That what was to help Somalis in Ethiopia

Salvation Army and Red Cross

She lay on her bed

Deep in pondering

Her hair wet and tangled

Fife Park never seemed so grim

And then

There was a crack in the clouds

A rumble grew steady

It was building up

The bowl of rose water crashed to the floor

The radiator pipes burst in violent steam

The windows burst into evil shards

The cupboard tilted and fell

Rembrandt on the wall shook scared

Mary and her piety crashed and burnt

Clouds turned blood red 

And men outside exploded in gritty red

Houses, small tenements were in agony

Writhing the monstrous steely spikes rise in air

The world is aflame

And she smiles to herself

And falls asleep. 
 
 
 

Ritwik Deo is a post-grad at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Most of his writing is dull and uninspiring; meant for the industrial wastescape. He does it to make a living but now and then, say after a random bout of stimulants he starts jotting down the insufferables.