The Sermon
There’s a priest that’s been visiting my room.
He takes the shape of some know-it-all fly,
black-hooded and banging on and on about
letting in God, doing right to your neighbors, and
eating your greens, in the same, monotonous voice.
He doesn’t pause on the wall for one second,
not to catch its breath or
to enjoy the view. After all, he’s here with one
purpose, and he won’t leave until he gets what he wants,
or until God dismisses him from his duty.
The pulse in my neck ticks softly against the sheets,
my own chamber of confession.
I try to drown out the sermon,
but this guy sure loves the sound of his own voice.
I bet he likes what he sees in the mirror, too.
I whisper into my sheets that
I like my men silent, my priests hot, and my flies dead.
Lucy Olsman is a native Dutch student of the master Creative Writing in Cork. She writes both poetry and prose, and has recently finished her first novel. Some of her poems deal with themes of religion, like the Sermon, which Lucy wrote on one of her first nights in Cork. Another theme prominent in her writing is art. Her first novel is about the Japanese painting Love My Little Princess. She has also written many short stories and poems about Dutch Golden Age works of art. In this sense, she's very inspired by authors like Donna Tartt and Tracy Chevalier, who have also written ekphrastic novels (novels on works of art).
Lucy's work has also appeared in Motley Magazine, the student magazine of University College Cork.