Nicole Rollender

Prophecy V.  In the Gardens, My God

When I fished with my father, he pulled the hook 

& red gill from the trout’s mouth, tossing the slick 

body back sparkling into the lake. “How will he breathe 

anymore?” But when I thought I couldn’t continue

living after not drinking — for what I had done 

& failed to do — the Lord approached, scented

in lilacs. The forsaken Lord, who spirited

the Good Thief to paradise. My son twirls his palms. 

I think of the blue of the Galilean Sea. Osmanthus, 

effulgent oracle. The bitter, the sweet. Morning 

after morning, darkly dreaming of Gethsemane’s  garden, 

still in God’s gaze. This Palm Sunday, unlike others, 

I kneel on the church floor weeping. The short time 

in the fields of the sun. The shuddering boat.

A 2017 NJ Council on the Arts poetry fellow, Nicole Rollender is the author of the poetry collections, The Luster of Everything I’m Already Forgetting (Kelsay Books, 2023) and Louder Than Everything You Love (Five Oaks Press, 2017), and four poetry chapbooks. She has won poetry prizes from Center for Interfaith Relations, Catholic Literary Arts, Palette Poetry, Gigantic Sequins, CALYX Journal and Ruminate Magazine. Her work appears in Alaska Quarterly Review, Best New Poets, Ninth Letter, Puerto del Sol, Salt Hill Journal and West Branch, among many other journals. She’s managing editor at THRUSH Poetry Journal. Nicole holds an MFA from the Pennsylvania State University. Visit her online: www.nicolemrollender.com