There is no such sacrament, in this place,
where wine would be too bloody, and cleanness
is valued over beauty—here there are only the pews,
vague carpet, the piano with its dark lid—
an empty chapel after a Christmas potluck,
when the bishop tells his daughter
to enter each room, turn off lights, lock all doors—
and in the chapel, she feels a conditioned chill,
a persistent dread, at entering
a space that, without people, music, or
familiar faces, seems so impatient
for her absence, so it can go back to being—
perfect—and she would leave, gladly, except
for a guttering something that brightens
the corner of the pulpit, and which must be
a plastic Christmas candle, abandoned
by child, or harried parent—
She pretends, to feel
the space is her own, to be a pale bride,
conquering the aisle, though this is not
that kind of church, she not that kind of girl,
to consent to wed in any but the
biggest, whitest, most coveted temple—
but she pretends, hums a bridal march, and
mounts the few steps, where the pulpit tempts her,
and, to ease herself with irreverence,
she pretends to sing to a mute public,
and then, leans down to collect the candle
that is not a candle, but is instead
a baby, sprawled like carrion, twisted
on its side, and glowing incandescent—
her scream is cut off by morbidity,
and to touch it is necessary, as if
excising horror through tactility—
and she flips it onto its back, and then
her father, sprinting into the room, and,
seeing the object of her scream, says,
“Baby Jesus—I was wondering where He got to,”
and he turns off the small switch
that makes the plastic infant glow, and she
knows it was a just a nativity prop, escaped
from its manger, but still, even later that night,
safe in her bedroom with its many night lights,
its strategic and child-friendly bright,
she sees the infant as tortured, body awry,
and the crucified God conflates with child,
until on the cross she imagines a baby,
surrounded by staves, wailing into a wall
of unsympathetic gray, unpacified and strained.
Bishop’s daughter grasps, for the first time, that
Easter Jesus was once Christmas Jesus,
that the baby in the manger is frozen in time,
before it grows up to become—ugly, sharp-sided word—martyr,
a word which Bishop’s daughter has yet to learn,
but when she hears it, first in some lesson, or perhaps a film,
she shudders as if a nail is dragged across her back—
and thinks of the pulpit’s guttering light,
that chapel with its grim and worshipped blight.
— & —
Micah Cozzens graduated with a PhD in Creative Writing from Ohio University in 2024. Her work has appeared in Irreantum, Segullah, the Rat’s Ass Review, Jersey Devil Review, and Time of Singing magazines. Her first full length poetry collection, titled Emily and Other Poems, is expected in 2026 from By Common Consent press. When not writing, she enjoys teaching, spending time with her five nephews and niece, and reading about disgraced dictators and aging supermodels.
