Friday nights, we find solace

in the renovated Presbyterian church

where we worship the rock step.

Four & six counts. Ourselves,

breathless beneath blue & purple

aerial silks ghosting the ceiling,

waiting to recall their bodies.

They teach us how to coil

our hands into hooks. How to twist

into open spaces, communicate

by touch. How to spin out &

bring someone back. A woman in

red tugs on a man’s suspenders,

brings his face close. I watch

the incline of her pumps swan-dive

into the hardwood, toes rounded

by teal. A chorus of shoes knocks against

the once-holy oak, hymns rising to

meet stained glass & nylon-draped rafters,

tempting the wood back into branches

bathed by light, coaxed by fireflies

into forgotten psalms spoken

by leaves brushing leaves, wind

cupping their green. In the pauses

between songs, we stand in the forest

listening for the sound of falling.

Remembering that we, too, are

miraculous.

Shannon Austin (she/her) is a writer from Baltimore, MD, with an MFA in poetry from UNLV. Her work has appeared in Drunk Monkeys, Rust + Moth, Nimrod Journal, Okay Donkey, and elsewhere. She will never get over the opening pizza scene from Home Alone.