CYN KITCHEN

Cyn is an associate professor of English at Knox College where she teaches creative writing and literature.  She is the author of a short story collection, TEN TONGUES, and also writes creative nonfiction and poems.  Her work appears or is forthcoming in Assisi, American Writers Review, Poetry South and Fourth River.  Her book of poems, BROKEN HALLELUJAH, was named a finalist for the 2020 Wren Poetry Prize.  Cyn lives and writes in Forgottonia, a downstate region on the Illinois prairie.

THE MUFFLED PRESENCE OF THE HOLY

overheard in a bar once

this guy says to another

when I was a kid, the only

time I prayed to God

was when I couldn’t find

a Lego brick. I’m guessing

by virtue of his double scotch

it’s not a toy he’s missing, 

legs restless

in the night, his bed

a prison, daylight

the key. 

here in the waiting

before the next wave 

crests, tumbles in

unhinging, we

or maybe I, listen 

in the silence for a voice

louder than the ringing

in my ears, one that says

something back, something

helpful, a hook 

on which I can hang my hat.  

Read more of Cyn’s work in Solum Journal Volume I.