The Meaning of Water

by Karina Longo

There was a little chapel
in a small village up from
Kilkenny; Father O’Rourke
said Mass every Tuesday
at midday.

Noon, an equator of light;
foreign, pale, and forgotten –
it was autumn –
when I found him by the cliffs,
milking a cow,
filling a silver jar with fresh milk.

“I thought you were a Priest, not a farmer”;
I jabbed, wind cutting paper-thin silence
like a merciful mother.

He turned to me, his hands still wet,
and I saw the love of God in the green
that stared back, his voice still echoes:

“Sometimes a tap of water is just
what it is. It is there not just to clean;
but to nourish, too.”

BIO: Karina Longo (she/her) is a Brazilian-Italian neurodivergent poet based in Milan. You can find her work in Expat Press, Eulogy Press, Dodo Eraser, Blood + Honey, Michigan City Review of Books, Eunoia Review, Some Words, and other places. X: TheDarkestStar_