Goodluck Charm for the Deadnamed

You check your pockets for a spare
talisman but you've only got
a crucifix and a condom.

Christ's naked body is the closest
thing you have to porn. Imagine
the softness of it's pink stomach,

the long hair, pinked mouth, puckered,
probably asking God to pardon us,
but it looks strangely like a kiss. Wet

your lips with your tongue. You've gone
dry. Listen, baby! I'm fertile as dirt, I'm
braying into the night air, I'm a howl.

You see the moon now. You know
you need neither thing in this pocket
only rain, sky, bodies knocking

together like marbles, hard nipples
on a cold night where everything
is dying and the condom breaks anyway

and you can't even finish 'cuz
somewhere your grandfather is praying
for a name that no longer exists.

Grey Weatherford-Brown is an undergraduate at Susquehanna University. They are a poet, memoirist, sister, and Pittsburgh native. Their work has previously appeared in The Literary Bohemian and Essay Magazine.