Stephanie Goehring writes and paints in Charlottesville, Virginia. She blogs at http://boxfordcourt.blogspot.com .

I'm Probably Lying**

But I first overdosed to understand
your addiction to injury, your obsession with chainsaws.
After the butterfly flew backward (the thrum of its wings so white)
and the bees confessed their immortality, I forgot you,
remembering how god created the world from nothing
but a scythe and the way his declaration of light
fell on a field of beans.

I overdosed again and found forgiveness was a man
walking through the lack of rain, wet to his bones.
He was wearing your clothes and said, "History is like cedar:
Get some nails for your palms or burn it for warmth,"
so I let the kerosene lick my throat.

I awoke coughing blood, pulling splinters
from between my teeth. After the wood turned to dirt,
the dirt turned to beans and the bees turned up dead
on the butterfly's wings, I remembered god
and how she created the world with no memory
of who had ever wronged her.

**poem initially appeared in Reimagining Place