A Sunday at the Mall

By Holly Suzanne Abel

She prays for me, as though Jesus is crouched  

in the Apple Store’s white hot fluorescent lights,  

as though she can’t see my cheeks 

flushing redder than my service dog’s worn leather collar. 

Capital-H He compels her, she tells me, 

laying a thin hand on my thick shoulder,

to pray for the weak, for the needy, 

for the sick.  

I want to tell her that in Sunday school, 

I doodled on the program, 

the series of abstract lines and flowers 

drowning out the minutiae of the pastor’s sermon.  

As the flock prayed, I squeezed my eyes closed, 

trying to burn stars on the inside of my eyelids. 

When my mother asked me my favorite part, 

I could only say the music.  

I have never believed in God.  

I don’t believe that Jesus can hear the unwelcome  

whisperings of the Bible-bearing woman  

who has me cornered at the Mall of America, 

that her words hold more power than my pen on paper, 

that the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit 

turned their attention to my aching joints and wobbly walk 

in that moment.  

She slips into the staring crowd of iPhone-toting customers, 

forgetting me as easily as she prays the rosary.  

The salesperson raises a confused eyebrow, 

and I shrug, accustomed  

to the intrusions of strangers.  

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Holly Suzanne Abel (she/her) is a poet based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She writes in between graduate school, two jobs, a small business, and spending time with her pitbull. Holly's work focuses on disability and mental health as well as relationships with the self and others.