Holy and So Were our Souls

Brittney Steele

We whistled like we’d been born again in Mayberry
Found Graceland in the mellow afternoons
In plain old denim
Shirts and knees of grass stains
From when you first lay down next to me
To watch the clouds
As we figured out
Just how much we were capable of
Feeling

Simple
Like a missing button on a shirt
Or when we’d sleep of being tired
And hoped to die of thirst
Like how we counted up the different ways to die
And guessed on who’d go first

We wore felt-lined hats and costumes for clothes
Tacking notes to signs about stray pets and recycling
I kept you from drinking all the Coca-cola down
And we called static the sound on the tip of a tongue
 Much like the one I used to introduce
Our mouths with

We came out of the closet that held our winter clothes
And the scarves that we both wore when we first used our fingers
To explore the placement of our cheekbones
And the shape of the rims around our coffee mugs
Sitting in the television light
That left a stain of white on the surface of our eyes
Before I asked if you could hold me
And you said that you could try

Oh
Back when our sandals were holey
And so were our souls

Holy and so were our souls