On your death-bed, you smell like that night. That convenience store and how we swam in its green-sweet fluorescence to buy up cream sodas. We covered our faces against the gas fumes as I pumped and you stood staring down the quiet highway. We needed the tank full enough to get us to the edge of town where the other locals said a dog-man haunted that brambled field. We got there and hopped the thin fence hugging it. I wanted to find the dog-man and tell him everything would be okay.
Who we actually found was Jesus Christ, sweeping his palm over the ground in front of him. Light emanated. He had lost his pet fox. She must have dug under the pearly gates, snuck past St. Peter, and dove down some portal. Her name was Tabitha and she’d been gone for three days. Jesus wept.
We split up from Him to help search and after the heat sweat through my shirt, I spotted her rolling in the grass, chattering. She was okay. You carried her while we found Jesus and then passed her off to Him like she was a baby that fell asleep on the drive home. They ascended and you and I waved.
In the hospital, I hear a breeze pass from the hallway, through the door, over your body. Now you smell like red wine. You lift your arms, and then they drop.
Bishop V. Navarro (they/she) is a poet, fiction writer, and film critic from Tampa, Florida. They hold an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of South Florida and currently pursue a Ph.D in Communication at USF. Their creative work often seeks to transform Christian iconography for queer pasts and futures. You can follow them on twitter @vnavarrowriter.