[Once among the lilacs]
Once among the lilacs, my mother
caught me licking dew from red & white
amanitas. She told me that I’d someday
see god. She told me god would look an awful
lot like myself in the mirror, the way god looks
only in poems. She said I shouldn’t do everything
god tells me to do. She said beware
the devil, who also lives in the mirror, who also
looks like me. Stand up, son, she said & licked her
palm, smoothing it over my lilac-scented hair.
Justin Rigamonti teaches English at Portland Community College and serves as the Program Coordinator for the Carolyn Moore Writing Residency. His poems have been recently published or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Radar, New Ohio Review, Thrush, and Smartish Pace, where his poem “The Secret” was a finalist for the 2022 Erskine J. Poetry Prize.