HOW ST. FRANCIS EXPLAINED TO HIM WHAT THINGS ARE PERFECT JOY by Wren Hanks

hush: a journal of noise

How St. Francis Explained To Him What Things Are Perfect Joy

by Wren Hanks

hush · issue 1

If the bananas rot, make bread.

Leave flour on your shirt,

shoulders cut, a sailor’s

tattoo whispering to your armpit.

When you lick his chest,

all eyes gaze back, all eyes enough

for the angel hiding under hand-

sized wings. The world opens in bread,

and in your mouth; he offers you a vine

and take it. He offers you an oven

of rodents and larvae wintering, take that too.

Wren Hanks

Wren Hanks is the author of The Rise of Genderqueer, a 2018 selection for Brain Mill Press’s Mineral Point Poetry Series. A 2016 Lambda Literary Emerging Writers Fellow, his poetry has been a finalist for Indiana Review’s 1/2 K Prize and anthologized in Best New Poets. His recent work appears or is forthcoming in Indiana Review, Waxwing, Third Coast, New South, and elsewhere. He is also the author of Prophet Fever (Hyacinth Girl Press), an Elgin Award finalist. His new manuscript, Lily-livered, was a finalist for DIAGRAM’s 2020 Chapbook Contest. He lives in Brooklyn, where he is a supervisor for ACC’s New Hope program, a proactive community initiative that finds homes for “problem pets” and wildlife.