Transgression

by Evan Wambeke

No matter how you translate 

your Bible, wild horses 

stay wild. Snow melts 

into rivers and pours veins 

across the heartland. 

It is not sex, 

the desire, for his fingers 

to fall like pines 

into the palms of another 

man. It is the nature of us, 

to lie with another, looking 

at the stars like we are two felled flowers

inventing language for our reflection.

In every holy book, we have crafted

every word. We have changed 

every word. You do not speak 

your God’s language 

even if you hold the county 

Republican meetings in the Cowboy Church,

even if you make new commandments,

call them a platform, claim that God

weaves unchangeable gender 

into DNA, that your definition 

of marriage is nuclear. Rivers run.

Rivers split. Petals bend to the wind

you do not cause. It 

is natural, to want 

to be human. To actualize 

oneself, as a bud does becoming 

a flower. To pair oneself 

like a mountain and the sky 

becoming horizon 

or another mountain 

becoming a range. 

You’ve turned our Bible into a building

with no room for wildflowers 

no space for wild horses