The priest cooked me risotto
while I tongued olives and dry wine.
Barefoot and drunk, we compared
best sad operas and stumbled
through yoga poses in the gloaming. After,
giggling like schoolchildren through the buzz,
sidling up to a bar bellowing for bourbon
and crushed ice. Fill it all the way up!
We danced to Abba and my skirt
fell down, but I never once thought
to confess more than was settled
or ask anything close to forgiveness.

Jessica (Tyner) Mehta is a Cherokee poet and novelist. She’s the author of four collections of poetry including Secret-Telling Bones, Orygun, What Makes an Always, and The Last Exotic Petting Zoo as well as the novel The Wrong Kind of Indian. She’s been awarded numerous poet-in-residencies posts, including positions at Hosking Houses Trust and Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England, Paris Lit Up in France, and the Acequia Madre House in Santa Fe, NM. Jessica is the recipient of a Barbara Deming Memorial Fund in Poetry. She is the owner of a multi-award winning writing services business, MehtaFor, and is the founder of the Get it Ohm! karma yoga movement. Visit Jessica’s author site at www.jessicatynermehta.com