John of God \u2013
Patron Saint of Heart Patients \u2013 “
my students need you.
Forgive their incidental murmurs,
their clotted ink,
the myriad hesitations
of their teenage hearts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And some days
\nour old heating system
\ndrowns out my voice, so
\nApollina, they need you too,
\nPatron Saint of the Deaf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nudge me, Dominic,
\nPatron Saint of Astronomers,
\nif I ever block their view of the stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And for the ones who pull their
\nblack hoods down,
\nbless them Anthony the Abbot \u2013
\nPatron Saint of Grave Diggers.
\nHelp them bury what they need to.
\nLead them East toward the light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dear Alexis, Patron Saint of Beggars,
\nhelp me notice their outstretched hands.
\nGuide me as I teach them
\nthree metaphors for hunger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John of God \u2013 Patron Saint of Heart Patients \u2013 “ my students need you. Forgive their incidental murmurs, their clotted ink, the myriad hesitations of their teenage hearts. And some days our old heating system drowns out my voice, so Apollina, they need you too, Patron Saint of the Deaf. Nudge me, Dominic, Patron … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-wi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2003,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002\/revisions\/2003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Colette Tennant has two poetry collections: Commotion of Wings (2010) and Eden and After (2015), as well as the commentary Religion in the Handmaid\u2019s Tale: a brief guide (2019). Her poem \u201cRehearsals\u201d was awarded third by Billy Collins in the 2019 Fish Publishing International Writing Contest. Most recently, her poem was accepted by Eavan Boland for Poetry Ireland Review\u2019s Issue 129. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, and others. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"