Photo: Rebecca Ding Photography (http://www.rebeccading.com.au/)

One of the people I met at the recent Evangelical History Association Conference was Erin Martine Sessions (Erin’s website, still under development, can be found here: www.erinmartinesessions.com). Erin works at Morling College in Sydney where she is also doing doctoral studies in the Song of Solomon. Her Masters is in English literature, and I found she has a poem in Australian Love Poems (Inkerman & Blunt, 2013, 2014).

These two poems, including Erin’s, come from a section entitled, “We outgrow love like other things.”

Israel
(Erin Martine Sessions, p. 268)

You’ve got someone else in mind
as we walk on ruined temple walls.
This city was built with the stones under our feet
and I am built with parts of you.

As we walk on ruined temple walls
our tongues reclaim the language of Genesis
and I am created with parts of you.
We are raising our own religion

As our tongues reclaim the language of Genesis.
We trace the etymology of maps
to orient our own religion.
And I try not to notice your fingers.

We trace the etymology of maps
to resurrect antiquarian words
and you try not to notice
as I reflect the freckles in your eyes.

I breathe the air from your lungs
and exhale our favourite words:
“I am built with parts of you.”
But you’ve got someone else in mind.

*****

Bittersweet
(Melinda Smith, p. 272)

#micropoem #divorce
your mistress/tells her friends/
about your enormous/
bank account/
I tell mine/about your tiny/
heart