Derek R. Smith (he/him) is a public health professional, Anishinaabe two-spirit, uncle, sibling, partner, friend, who finds it hard to not write poetry. He has recent publications in Great Lakes Review, ¡Pa’lante!, euphony, and Ignation Literary Magazine. There is no space for distance here, in poetry, and isn’t that a beautiful thing?

Heretics

So we’re both heretics
To each other.
We praise such different gods:
You, a love of magic
Where the divine shows up
In alphabet cereal letters floating in milk
Or the sudden appearance of
Butterflies where
Butterflies shouldn’t be,
And I, stuck in a heavy, ancient mindset
Worshipping logical deductions,
Finding meaning laid out meaningfully
And looking out from stained glass windows,
Searching for more from my seat of tradition.
As we sit on your mismatched chairs,
Arms on a worn away tabletop
So entirely not purchased at Ikea,
I patiently wait for my tea to steep.
You swirl and dip your teabag,
Play with it, reciting silent incantations.
We are drawn here together
In our spiritual detente.
Let’s move along to common ground,
For religion has no place here.
All sins are forgiven
And the two of us,
In agnostic universal mysticism,
We dance.