Faith
Emily Van Kley | Poetry
I believed in God.
My debts were many.
I was always parked
in a damp
backseat of flesh.
No one kissed
my neck,
that supple giblet.
My sin was being
unwanted
until I was wanted,
then my sin
became more vascular.
I believed because
belief was labor,
and labor more
unassailable than love.
Scuzzy incarnation,
bone bag of hanker.
When it comes
to the beyond––
its covert
particulars––
this formidable lust.
Emily Van Kley is a queer poet and circus artist currently based in Olympia, Washington. Her poetry collections are The Cold and the Rust (2018), winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize, and Arrhythmia (2022), both from Persea Books. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry and Best New Poets, and has received the Loraine Williams Prize for Poetry, the Iowa Review Award, and the Florida Review Editor’s Award among other honors. When not writing, Emily can often be found teaching or performing aerial acrobatics as a member of Airbound Underground.