By Age 8
Grant Chemidlin
​
I am afraid to pray. Each time I try—
press my hands into a spire, mumble
a rushed Our Father—I open my palms to find
truth, to find two sinful cities have taken
root. Sprouting from my skin—opalescent
bridges, loud parade music, boy ballerinas
moving like silk. I banish my hands
to the sink, scrub them raw, hot flood
after hot flood.
Grant Chemidlin is a queer poet living in Los Angeles. He is the author of two collections of poetry, He Felt Unwell (So He Wrote This) and Things We Lost In The Swamp. He's been a finalist for the Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award, the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, and is currently pursuing an MFA at Antioch University-Los Angeles. Recent work has been published or forthcoming in Tupelo Quarterly, Santa Clara Review, Sky Island Journal, and Nixes Mate Review, among others.