When I Cross Myself
When my framework between right and wrong
splinters, I cross myself for willing the return
of those indelicate nights with you in my apartment,
of knowing the wrong as you removed your
wedding band, of not caring to do right, of
watching and laughing as it dropped to the carpet
and on the way down, taking with it whatever
could have stopped me. I cross myself then.
I cross myself for long Sundays that have not arrived,
for the defiant, misbehaving housewife I have become,
for the husband who loves me more than I do him,
for the boyfriends I want as side hustles, for the defiance
that burns me down while I make casseroles and fold
laundry. For the annoyance I feel when I see myself
naked and can’t get a good enough pose to send nudes.
Long before this, I crossed myself in utero, praying
my mother would not abort me, that she would let me
come home to my father and older brother, that she
will not be possessed by demons, so I could grow,
and permit me to return, again, when I lost jobs
and that she does not make fun of me for the men
who left me. I cross myself on these occasions, too.
I cross myself in dreams. In these, my life has
unraveled and there is no one to look after me in
death, where I rest in the box and avoid the sharp
corners of the life I lived, sorry, for all of it.
When I Cross Myself by Loukia Borrell | Garden Lavender Poetry Reed Diffuser
Loukia Borrell is a first-generation American born to Greek-Cypriot parents in Toledo, Ohio. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English, with a journalism concentration, from Elon University in North Carolina. She is a former newspaper reporter who has written three books. Her poetry has appeared in nearly two dozen literary journals in the United States and United Kingdom, including Allium, a Journal of Poetry & Prose, The Big Windows Review, Rat's Ass Review, and One by Jacar Press. "When I Cross Myself" was published in mojo, the online literary journal at Wichita State University in 2024.
