In Heaven There Will Be No Bodies by Megan Pinto

In Heaven There Will Be No Bodies

which exist to tempt us, and move us

toward grace. I try and imagine 

a bodiless place, full of holographic angels 

and saints, walking through clouds or staring 

into space. When I think of grace

I see my Grandmother on the carpet, folded 

over at her knees. I see my Mother

in lamplight, eyes closed and feeling 

for the next Rosary bead. As a child, 

my Mother waited outside St. Michael’s

in Mahim, for rations of milk and curds

of cheese. She tells me they had only 

white bread to eat, which is how I imagine 

manna, torn and falling from God’s open palms 

like bags of Sara Lee before geese 

at the park. Inside all my Bible picture books, 

God’s face is European, maybe even

Portuguese. But what’s

………………………………………in a name? 

At the Discount Bread store, all the bread 

looked the same. Some Saturdays I wandered

the aisles, while my Father washed 

our blankets at the laundromat next door. 

I hated Raleigh, where my body 

stayed bruised from games

at school. I wanted friends. Only the body

holds what the mind cannot. 

At my Grandmother’s funeral, bruises 

blued her arms, and we learned these were marks 

from where she was bound by the nuns 

for speaking too loudly at meals. 

………………………………………I batter my body 

to make it enslaved, wrote Saint Paul

to the Corinthians one day. In High School I studied 

feminism by night, religion by day. When mornings came, 

I spent an hour straightening my hair 

and lining my eyes. I read somewhere

that one should imagine a God 

as someone they could trust. The author 

chose a female God, the kind of God

who radiated light 

………………………………………that did not blind. 

So I closed my eyes. Then I tried so hard to imagine Her.

But I could not.

Megan Pinto is a writer living in Brooklyn. Her poems can be found in Ploughshares, Lit Hub, Meridian, and elsewhere. She has received support from Bread Loaf and the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference, and an Amy Award from Poets & Writers. Megan holds an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson.