Attention is a Form of Devotion

Mermaid’s purses pock the shore.

For you, I’d wear a chastity belt.

When you’re gone, I slip my hand inside

a rubber kitchen glove, bits of food pooled 

in the fingertips. Recoil makes 

distance a temporary refuge.

Without distance from God 

what is God? Stalactites drip pus 

in the siren’s grotto. We don’t fuck

but she picks at my sores until they ooze. 

In the port of your city, a bell 

occasionally chimes for me. I don’t know 

if I chose to be loved this way, 

only that I’ll keep asking for it.

Annie Lou Martin reads and writes in Brooklyn, NY. Their work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Brooklyn Rail, b l u s h lit, No, Dear, Rose Books, and elsewhere. Their first chapbook, SAINT IBS (2024), is available through Bottlecap Press.