The Body's River A poem for Sunday I was born for betrayal— When my mother left me in the orphanage, I invented love with strangers. And if it wasn't there, I made it be there, until the crash, the revelation. They say blues is three chords and the truth— And poetry is long-lined lies and a deep dive into the body's costly river. The Atlantic   Published February 2023 Sanctified for Sister Rosetta Tharpe Dear Sister Rosetta, it's 50 years too late, but I love your high- heeled guitar playing, the way they said you railed your white Les Paul Custom like a tommy gun: gospel-wild and showing the men how it's done- double cutaway fins, your dress breathing red flowers hugging your full-size body, and I don't want to be redeemed, but I have become glorious in the halls of tricked- out love from the glint of your enormous necklace, hearing your soul-heavy voice surge/ flowers blur as your chest swells with song, I'm blown away by my own bullets of trouble. Sister, I'm saying what you always knew- that real is real, that in the nightclub wailing and the strap-on guitars, there's no happy ending, just the blues shouters, scorching, sanctified. Southern Indiana Review   Published Spring 2023 All work copyright © Jan Beatty 2024