Jenna Caschera – And Peace to His People on Earth

[Moonshot #3: Secret]
Jenna Caschera ☛ And Peace to His People on Earth

Before the Cherokee traced a feather along the tip of my nose,
he twirled it between his finger and thumb and spun
my future. I was told I would feel the knife or avoid it, leave
quietly—exit now. He insists I know
the way my grandmother unfolded a handkerchief,
limp pile of yellow wavy hair from 1952. Her small
pursed lips told me how babcia dreamt it: David falling
head first down the stairs, awoke to a malignant growth
on his brain, death of the first-born son, age three, birth
of my mother. I know         rituals, rhyming, the silence
when striking a broken piano key, the butter lamb
with the peppercorn eyes, and how to honor the Divine
Mother. I know how to beg for guidance, and fall
from grace over and over.
Outside I kneel into dampened silver blankets that stretch
with nightfall. Praying is like holding a gun, one hand gripping
the fist of the other, thumbs stacked.         Join me in prayer,
white moonflowers: pray that when you bloom moths, birds,
bees, and bats will find you in the dark. It is wrong,
I know.        A shame—Mama at church, selfless tears
for each of her children, hands clasped, fingers interwoven—
never to know good from bad.

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Jenna Caschera comes from the Detroit metro area.  She received her B.F.A. in Photography & Intermedia and B.A. in English with a Creative Writing emphasis at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.  She very much loves her family, her fat cats, and looking at photographs, which trigger memory and serve as reminders that we are a visual culture.  She currently studies at Butler University in Indianapolis where she will receive her M.F.A. in Creative Writing.