After a Man with a Combover Asks Me to Explain Atheism
by Jordan Cobb
I was never good at believing in heaven,
but I have seen hell, & it’s navy blue. Like a pin-striped suit,
an officer’s uniform, a retirement ceremony with a bronze star
stuck to a chest. Blue like bedsheets or blankets or quilts
that cover bodies & consciousness. Like the hours I spent running
over the icy asphalt on Panther Hollow Bridge, where the steel
corroded. Navy blue like the interior decorator learned the devil
is colorblind, so she decided to use a ‘monochrome palette’
& proceeded to put pleather everywhere. The barstools & booths,
cracked under the weight of fallen faith, which, she swore,
spooked the vegans & pissed off the eco-geeks who were afraid
the microplastics would never degrade. The center of a terrifying flame,
not the blue you think, but darker, harder to contain. A house,
up in smoke. An insurance claim. Or, candles spiked into sweets,
a blowout bash of a birthday. Because the movies make it seem blue
is the warmest color, but Revelations described the dead given up
from the ocean, only to be delivered to a lake of fire. The blood
was red, yes, but the rest: navy blue.
but I have seen hell, & it’s navy blue. Like a pin-striped suit,
an officer’s uniform, a retirement ceremony with a bronze star
stuck to a chest. Blue like bedsheets or blankets or quilts
that cover bodies & consciousness. Like the hours I spent running
over the icy asphalt on Panther Hollow Bridge, where the steel
corroded. Navy blue like the interior decorator learned the devil
is colorblind, so she decided to use a ‘monochrome palette’
& proceeded to put pleather everywhere. The barstools & booths,
cracked under the weight of fallen faith, which, she swore,
spooked the vegans & pissed off the eco-geeks who were afraid
the microplastics would never degrade. The center of a terrifying flame,
not the blue you think, but darker, harder to contain. A house,
up in smoke. An insurance claim. Or, candles spiked into sweets,
a blowout bash of a birthday. Because the movies make it seem blue
is the warmest color, but Revelations described the dead given up
from the ocean, only to be delivered to a lake of fire. The blood
was red, yes, but the rest: navy blue.
Jordan Cobb (she/her) is a queer American poet based in NYC. Her work has recently appeared in Interpret Magazine, Magma, Fugue Journal, & The McNeese Review. She is @on_the_cobb on Instagram.