
Deja Earley
DEJA EARLEY’s {[email protected]} poems and essays have previously appeared or are forthcoming in national journals like Arts and Letters, Borderlands, and Lilliput Review. She has received honors in several writing contests, including the 2008 Joan Johnson Award in poetry, the 2004–2005 Parley A. and Ruth J. Christensen Award, and an Honorable Mention from the Academy of American Poets in both 2003 and 2004. She completed a Ph.D. in English and creative writing at the University of Southern Mississippi and moved to the Boston area, where she works as a development editor at Bedford/St. Martin’s Press. She blogs at dejavuearley.blogspot.com
I Teach Six-Year-Olds about Jesus in Sunday School
Articles/Essays – Volume 40, No. 3
A girl I’ve never met meets me at the door,
whines at my leg until I hold her. Thin arms,
thin mouth, a sour smell I overlook while fetching
crayons, glue sticks, snacks. She lifts her dress,
exposes the top of her baggy white tights, looks at me.
We both sing: “Faith is knowing the sun will rise…”
I sit next to her, tap her hands, whisper no.