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Bible Study, a poem by Tracy Mishkin

Bible Study
by Tracy Mishkin

Genesis begins with light, ends with a coffin
in Egypt. Then another coffin floats on the Nile,
an ark for a tiny, wailing refugee who will build
another ark, a tent of meeting in the wilderness.
As an old man, he will squint at the Promised Land
from an eroded mountain, his sister and brother
buried somewhere behind him. No one will mention
his children. If he were granted a gravestone,
it would say he argued with his god. The one
who sends floods that rip coffins from the earth,
bobbing past this ark in which we huddle together.


Bio: Tracy Mishkin is a call center veteran with a PhD and an MFA student in Creative Writing at Butler University. Her chapbook, I Almost Didn't Make It to McDonald's, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2014. Her second chapbook, The Night I Quit Flossing, is forthcoming from Five Oaks Press. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.