Sweet Fingers San Leandro Quotes

She stepped over to the model. "The little town looks so sweet in the moonlight."
And so did Lindsey. Her sexy silhouette had him riveted in place. He knew better, but his instincts urged him to go to her. Joining her next to the model, he skimmed his fingertips over her bare shoulder and down her arm. He reached her hand and languidly laced his fingers between hers. "Not nearly as sweet as you look," he whispered close to her ear ... ~ Tracy March

I sighed, sinking back, head filling with pleasant images; pictures Pietr floated to the surface. Kisses scorched along my face and neck. "Pietr ... "
There was a growl, and I felt fingers at the waistband of my jeans. The button opened and a hand traced along the top of my underpants.
"No," I said. The kissing resumed, harder. "Jessica." The word rumbled in someone's throat. Not Pietr's. To him, I was Jess.
"No," I insisted, trying to pry my eyes open. Something was wrong ... Not Pietr ... I pushed at the chest above me, my eyelids stinging as I willed them apart.
"Relax ... " a voice said, lips dragging along the cornerof my jaw, filling my head with honey, sticky and sweet ... ~ Shannon Delany

It wasn't a hard kiss, but it wasn't particularly soft either. It was just perfect. The perfect amount of sweet and hot, and...
She put her hands on his chest, shoving him backward. "Please don't mess with me. Please. Just talk to me."
Jackson's eyes shadowed with regret as he slowly released her wrist, lifting a hand to her face. The back of his fingers stroked her cheek softly. "Talk to you?"
She nodded.
"What shall I talk about?" he whispered.
"How about the fact that you're supposed to be in Houston right now? It's the only reason I came over."
"I was in Houston," he said.
"For what, an hour?" she asked.
"Probably about that, yeah." He was watching her mouth as his thumb brushed softly over her lips.
Her breath caught at the tenderness in his touch - in his eyes.
"What happened?"
His eyes flicked up to hers. "You want the full story, or the important part?"
"The important part," she whispered.
"I love you. ~ Lauren Layne

I want to marry you, Malda - because I love you - because you are young and strong and beautiful - because you are wild and sweet and - fragrant, and - elusive, like the wild flowers you love. Because you are so truly an artist in your special way, seeing beauty and giving it to others. I love you because of all of this, because you are rational and highminded and capable of friendship - and in spite of your cooking!"
"But - how do you want to live?"
"As we did here - at first," he said. "There was peace, exquisite silence. There was beauty - nothing but beauty. There were the clean wood odors and flowers and fragrances and sweet wild wind. And there was you - your fair self, always delicately dressed, with white firm fingers sure of touch in delicate true work. I loved you then. ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I love you," she whispers.
"It's only a week," I tell her, but I loathe this separation as much as she does.
Echo looks at me with those pleading green eyes. I twine my fingers into her curls. The first taste of her lips is sweet. The second makes me forget there's a bus terminal full of people. The third causes me to lift her feet off the ground and deepen our kiss.
"Noah," she whispers in reprimand as she breaks away. "We're causing a scene."
"Not my problem." But I lower her to the ground anyhow. "Besides, it wasn't my fault. You're the one looking at me with take-me-to-bed eyes, and I felt you kissing me back. Once again, you're the one getting us into trouble."
Echo grins. "You are so impossible."
"Damn straight, baby. ~ Katie McGarry

I think I'll take a shower, shave, get refreshed."
Domenico gave him a smile and lowered his voice. "Why? Because you still feel me inside?"
Seth bit his lip and started playing with his fingers. "You're always here, inside." Seth pointed to his heart, and it was so sweet, Dom hardly recognize the horny beast behind that facade.
He stared at Seth, unsure how to react to such honesty in reply to his dirty question. ~ K.A. Merikan

Maybe it's time to stop punishing yourself for past sins."
He wished it was that easy, but it wasn't. So if he was already this deep in, what was one more transgression? Snagging the hem of her tank top between two fingers, he tugged it taut. "I suppose you think you're the woman to show me the way?"
Leaning in close, she whispered into his good ear, "No one knows more about sinning than a Sweet. ~ Avery Flynn

I've had a fan who made a painting of my face with her fingers. I have put it up in my room. It was sweet and very different. ~ Virat Kohli

January brings the snow / Makes your feet and fingers glow / February's ice and sleet / Freeze the toes right off your feet / Welcome March with wintry wind / Would thou wer't not so unkind / April brings the sweet spring showers / On and on for hours and hours ... ~ Michael Flanders

Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is took weak and fuddled to shake off. ~ C.S. Lewis

For a moment, I pretended. Not that we weren't two different species, because I didn't see him that way, but that we actually liked each other.

And then he shifted and rolled. I was on my back, and he was still on the move. His face burrowed into the space between my neck and shoulder, nuzzling. Sweet baby Jesus...Warm breath danced over my skin, sending shivers down my body. His arm was heavy against my stomach, his leg between mine, pushing up and up. Scorched air fled my lungs.

Daemon murmured in a language I couldn't understand. Whatever it was, it sounded beautiful and soft. Magical. Unearthly.

I could've woken him up but for some reason I didn't. The thrill of him touching me was far stronger than anything else.

His hand was on the edge of the borrowed shirt, his long fingers on the strip of exposed flesh between the hem on the shirt and the band of the worn pajama bottoms. And his hand inched up under the shirt, across my stomach, where it dipped slightly. My pulse went into cardiac territory. The tips of his fingers brushed my ribs. His body moved, his knee pressed against me.

I gasped.

Daemon stilled. No one moved. The clock on the wall ticked.

And I cringed. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

He curves his fingers, hitting that sweet spot deep inside. The unicorn found the fucking Holy Grail.
Didn't even need a map.
He navigated right there. ~ J.M. Darhower

Thank you, miss ... ?"
"Annabelle." She dropped a napkin onto his lap and smiled. "And might I say you are a handsome gent. Beautiful green eyes! I can see why Miss Ayden fancies your company!"
Kane frowned. "Miss Ayden? Is this the same creepy woman with the gray eyes and weapons arsenal dangling from her hips?"
"Why yes, sir. Although, she's not so scary, once you get to know her." Anna backed away and clasped her fingers together. "Bit of a sweet spot she has." She winked.
"Yeah. I noticed. ~ Keri Lake

I wrapped my fingers around the first light I saw and felt all at once so happy and so sad and so free. My hand was cold somehow as I lifted the tiny star out of the water and brought its trembling, burning form to my face. I kissed it gently and laughed like a child as my face seemed to become angelic for a few moments. The star laughed back at me in little sweet notes, and I released it back to the sea. I can still feel the star in my hands to this day. You can have your noctiluca scintillans, your petty protists in the sea. I prefer to sail among the stars. ~ K.B. Ezzell

Impossible?" she scoffed, lurching to face him. "You have servants who can pull the brains from a calf's head, but they couldn' get one little pear out of a bottle? I doubt that. Send for one of your under-butlers - just give a whistle, and - oh, I forgot. You can't whistle." She focused on him, her eyes narrowing as she stared at his mouth. "That's the sillies' thing I ever heard. Everyone can whistle. I'll teach you. Right now. Pucker your lips. Like this. Pucker…see?"
Marcus caught her in his arms as she swayed before him. Staring down at her adorably pursed lips, he felt an insistent warmth invading his heart, overflowing and spilling past its fretted barriers. God in heaven, he was tired of fighting his desire for her. It was exhausting to struggle against something so overwhelming. Like trying not to breathe.
Lillian stared at him earnestly, seeming puzzled by his refusal to comply. "No, no, not like that. Like this." The bottle dropped to the carpet. She reached up to his mouth and tried to shape his lips with her fingers. "Rest your tongue on the edge of your teeth and…it's all about the tongue, really. If you're agile with your tongue, you'll be a very, very good" - she was temporarily interrupted as he covered her mouth with a brief, ravening kiss - "whistler. My lord, I can't talk when you - " He fitted his mouth to hers again, devouring the sweet brandied taste of her. ~ Lisa Kleypas

fingers into a beak and flapped it open and shut: talk, talk. "You never know. If you pick him up, he'll just call his lawyer. You might lose your only chance to talk to him." "No, it's better we pick him up. After that, you can sweet-talk him, Duff. That's what you're good at." "You sure?" "We can't have people saying we didn't push hard enough on this guy." The comment was off key, and a doubtful expression crossed Duffy's face. We had always made it a rule not to give a shit how things looked or what people thought. A prosecutor's judgment is supposed to be insulated from politics. "You know what I mean, Paul. This is the first credible ~ William Landay

Good," said Gideon. "It means the effect of the alcohol is wearing off. One question, by the way: what did you want a hairbrush for?"
"I wanted it as a substitute for a mike," I murmured through my fingers. "Oh, my God! I'm so horrible."
"But you have a pretty voice," said Gideon. "Even I liked it, and I told you I hate musicals."
"Then how come you can play songs from them so well?" I put my hands in my lap and looked at him. "You were amazing! Is there anything you can't do?" Good heavens, I heard myself sounding like a groupie.
"No. Go ahead, you're welcome to think me some kind of god!" He was grinning now. "It's rather sweet of you! ~ Kerstin Gier

Have you ever imagined walking with me? A long walk on an empty road, on a cold night. Where there is no one around, except us. My hand touches yours, in the name of sweet accidents. The stars decide to shine and the galaxies decide to burst inside me, instead of the sky. And all of a sudden, my hands try to play with your fingers. Until my fingers fill the gaps between yours. ~ Akshay Vasu

I've been wanting to kiss ye since the first moment I saw ye," he said. "I'm going to do it now."
Sybil could not breathe, let alone form the words to object. When she moistened her lips with her tongue, she felt his heartbeat leap beneath her palm. Her gaze fixed on his mouth as he drew her to him ever so slowly.
She had expected a sweet, teasing kiss, not this explosion of passion that seared through her body at the first touch of their lips. No one had ever kissed her like this before, as if he would die if he could not have his mouth on hers. With a will of their own, her arms wound around his neck and her fingers tangled in his long, thick hair as she pulled him closer.
She was lost in the sensations and long past thought. As his kisses slowly changed from feverish to tender, she felt as if she were floating. She wanted this to go on forever.
When Rory pulled away, she stared up at him, stunned.
"That was promising," he said with a wide grin. ~ Margaret Mallory

It may not always be so; and i say that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch his heart, as mine in time not far away; if on another's face your sweet hair lay in such a silence as i know,or such great writhing words as, uttering overmuch, stand helplessly before the spirit at bay; if this should be, i say if this should be- you of my heart, send me a little word; that i may go unto him, and take his hands, saying, Accept all happiness from me. Then shall i turn my face,and hear one bird sing terribly afar in the lost lands. ~ E. E. Cummings

He kissed her soundly, stealing her breath, before saying, "Tell me what you want, my lovely."
"I-" She stopped, too many words coming at once. 'I want you to touch me. I want you to love me. I want you to show me the life that I have been missing.' She shook her head, uncertain.
He smiled, pressing firmly with his hand against her, watching the wave of pleasure course through her. "Incredible," he whispered against the side of her neck. "So responsive. Go on..."
"I want-" She sighed as he set his lips to the hardened peak of one breast again. "I want... I want you," she said, and, in that moment, the words, so utterly simple in the face of the roiling emotions that coursed through her, seemed enough.
He moved his fingers firmly, deftly against her, and she gasped. "Do you want me here, Empress?"
She closed her eyes in embarrassment, biting her lower lip.
"Are you aching for me here?"
She nodded. "Yes."
"Poor, sweet love. ~ Sarah MacLean

She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Leisel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist's suit collection. She kissed him long and soft, and when she pulled herself away, she touched his mouth with her fingers ... She did not say goodbye. She was incapable, and after a few more minutes at his side, she was able to tear herself from the ground. It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on ... ~ Markus Zusak

His fingers touched the strings and all my thoughts were displaced. The sound was pure and sweet as water, bright as lemons. It was like no music I had ever heard before. It had warmth as a fire does, a texture and weight like polished ivory. It buoyed and soothed at once. ~ Madeline Miller

But…but that's tragic! To go through life without color? Unable to appreciate art, or beauty?"
He laughed. "Now, sweet-hold your brush before you paint me a martyr's halo. It's not as though I'm blind. I have a great appreciation for art, as I believe we've discussed. And as for beauty…I don't need to know whether your eyes are blue or green or lavender to know that they're uncommonly lovely."
"No one has lavender eyes."
"Don't they?" His gaze caught hers and refused to let go. Leaning forward, he continued, "Did that tutor of yours ever tell you this? That your eyes are ringed with a perfect circle a few shades darker than the rest of the…don't they call it the iris?"
Sophia nodded.
"The iris." He propped his elbow on the table and leaned forward, his gaze searching hers intently. "An apt term it is, too. There are these lighter rays that fan out from the center, like petals. And when your pupils widen-like that, right there-your eyes are like two flowers just coming into bloom. Fresh. Innocent."
She bowed her head, mixing a touch of lead white into the sea-green paint on her palette. He leaned closer still, his voice a hypnotic whisper. "But when you take delight in teasing me, looking up through those thick lashes, so saucy and self-satisfied…" She gave him a sharp look.
He snapped his fingers. "There! Just like that. Oh, sweet-then those eyes are like two opera dancers smiling from behind big, feathered fans. Coy. Beckoning."
Sophia ~ Tessa Dare

And he leans in, so carefully. Breathing
and not breathing and hearts beating
between us and he's so close, he's so close and I can't feel my legs anymore. I can't feel my fingers or the cold or the emptiness of this room because all I feel is him, everywhere,filling everything and he whispers
"Please."
He says "Please don't shoot me for this."
And he kisses me.
His lips are softer than anything I've ever known, soft like a first snowfall, like biting into cotton candy, like melting and floating and being weightless in water. It's sweet, it's
so effortlessly sweet.
And then it changes.
"Oh God - "
He kisses me again, this time stronger,
desperate, like he has to have me, like he's dying to memorize the feel of my lips against his own. The taste of him is making me crazy; he's all heat and desire and peppermint and I want more. I've just begun reeling him in, pulling him into me when he breaks away.
He's breathing like he's lost his mind andhe's looking at me like something has brokeninside of him, like he's woken up to find that
his nightmares were just that, that they never existed, that it was all just a bad dream that felt far too real but now he's awake and he's safe and everything is going to be okay and
I'm falling.
I'm falling apart and into his heart and I'm a disaster. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I hate you," she declared wretchedly in the vibrating, lust filled air.
He leaned in close, lips barely touching hers as he nudged at her cheek with his nose, his warm breath a seduction of its own until he was at her ear, "No, sweet pet, you hate that you want me," he imparted huskily.
"Do you feel that?" Her kiss bruised mouth parted in a soft gasp, her golden eyes widening as she felt his fingers dancing just beyond the damp barrier of her panties. "How wet you are? That's your pussy salivating for my cock. ~ Francette Phal

Her room was darkened with the curtains drawn, but he could sense her inside, moving around quietly. Her heartbeat had turned languid; she must be preparing for bed. He cocked his head, listening intently. The closet door opened and shut, and there was the sound of running water. He held the goblet with such tense care his fingers began to ache.
When she had turned the faucet off, he said telepathically, "Tess, come to your window."
Startled, frozen silence. Then the languid pace of her heart exploded into a furious rhythm.
For a moment, when she didn't move, he thought she might disobey and end their tenuous relationship. Then he heard the soft rustle of cloth, and the creak of floorboards. When she appeared in the darkened window, she looked shadowy, like the half-hidden, opaque moon, her skin pale like pearls and hair lustrous with darkness.
She looked down at him but said nothing.
He held the goblet up to show it to her. "Are you sure you want to give this to me?"
Because it mattered. It mattered what she said. While the struggle made the offering sweet, it was the act of the gift itself that was the vital part of the covenant.
She didn't respond for long moments. He stood motionless as he waited, until finally she moved to put her hand to the windowpane.
"Yes."
He inclined his head to her, brought the goblet to his lips and drank.
Pure, undiluted power slid down his throat. Like the delicate skin at her wrist, it was warm ~ Thea Harrison

Can I tell you a dirty secret?"
"Yes," she gasped. "Just hurry."
Derek's dark laughter increased her arousal, coating her in slick heat. Achingly slow, he sunk two thick fingers inside her. "If I could go back and do one thing differently that first night, I would taste your virgin pussy before I fucked you. I bet it would have been extra sweet. ~ Tessa Bailey

I think our last kiss was meant to be quick and chaste, but after the first touch of his lips fire leaped up and roared through my belly. My fingers yanked him close, digging into his back, and his arms crushed me to him as if wanting to meld us together. I knotted my fingers in his hair and bit down on his bottom lip, making him groan. His lips parted, and my tongue swept in to dance with his. There was nothing sweet or gentle in our last kiss; it was filled with sorrow and desperation, of the bitter knowledge that we could've had something perfect, but it just wasn't meant to be. ~ Julie Kagawa

A wicked look twinkled in her eye. "I'd say it's time to nut up or shut up. All this talking is gonna make me think you're all bark and no bite.
"Wouldn't want to let you down." On a curse, he covered her eager mouth with his, and the world he knew ripped wide open. She tasted cool, sweet, and rich, like ice cream in the summertime, and in that instant Killian knew he would never, ever get enough of her. Laws of nature could be damned. This woman's taste was all he would ever crave. Were there other women? Who the hell cared?
Sadie's soft, pliant lips opened to him as he ran his tongue along the seam of her mouth and she welcomed him in. Grasping her head with both hands, he groaned and took full control of the plundering kiss. He tangled his hands in her long, wet hair, which felt like ribbons of satin as it rushed through his fingers. Killian groaned when her tongue swept along his, seeking him out with the same desperation and urgency.
This was what he needed. This woman. Her touch. Her taste. How on earth could this be wrong? ~ Sara Humphreys

A text comes from Wallace.

An actual text too, not a message through the forum app. I gave him my number awhile back, before Halloween, but not because I wanted him to call me or anything. I wrote it on the edge of our conversation paper in homeroom and slid it over to him because sometimes I see something and think, Wallace would laugh at that, I should send him a picture of it, but the messaging app is terrible with pictures and texting is way better.

So he texts me now, and it's a picture. A regular sweet potato pie. Beneath the picture, he says, I really like sweet potato pie.

I text back, Yeah, so do I.

Then he sends me a picture of his face, frowning, and says, No, you don't understand.

Then another picture, closer, just his eyes. I REALLY like sweet potato pie.

A series of pictures comes in several-second intervals. The first is a triangular slice of pie in Wallace's hand. Then Wallace holding that slice up to his face - it's soft enough to start collapsing between his fingers. The next one has him stuffing the slice into his mouth, and in the final one it's all the way in, his cheeks are puffed out like a chipmunk's, and he's letting his eyes roll back like it's the best thing he's ever eaten.

I purse my lips to keep my laugh in, but my parents are fine-tuned to the slightest hint of amusement from me, and they both look up.

"What's so funny, Eggs?" Dad says.

"Nothing," ~ Francesca Zappia

The most difficult thing to do after a life well lived is to sit down and type it all out. To start with, your fingers are old and gnarled. You can see the skin crinkled up like paper, the knobby knuckles, the veins standing up blue and aggressive and you wonder, when did your hands change, when did they stop being young and firm and definite, when did the hesitancy creep in, when did the trembling begin. Your mind sieves through memories as thick as molasses and as bitterly sweet. The words trip on your tongue but hesitate to make their way onto the page because you debate endlessly in your head about which of them you should put down in print, terrified of the permanency of the written word. Memories are the kind of elusiveness that shift, change form, and remodel themselves by the second. It is a challenge to wrestle with them, to get them to agree to be analysed, to be put down in words and encapsulated into sentences, moulded into paragraphs. As long as they are shifting, morphing into different things as the moment suits them, they aren't bound by one person's recollection of how things were, of how they happened. These are my memories.
And this was my life. And so I try to write this. I am already half way through what I am trying to put down. I have no idea who would want to read the story of my life. But I write it out, more for myself, than for anyone else who would care to read. ~ Kiran Manral

I take a faltering step towards him, my blood pounding, my veins charged with pent-up energy begging me to run. I lace my hands around his neck and place my ear over his chest, listening to his heart. I trust him, he just needs to calm down. He's stiff at first. He sighs and his whole body deflates, melting against mine. The steady thuds in my ears slow down and he hugs me back, his mouth leaving a trail of sweet kisses on my head as his fingers softly scratch my scalp. ~ Tammy Faith

He laced his fingers through mine and lifted my hand to his lips. I had gloves on, but he kissed exactly where I wore his ring.
"Why are you so sweet?" I asked, my voice small. My heart beat rapidly, and every star peeping through the clouds seemed to be shining just for me.
"I don't think I'm that sweet. I mean, I just told you to be quiet. That's one step away from asking you to wash my laundry and make me a sandwich."
"You know what I mean."
Seth pressed another kiss to my forehead. "I'm sweet because you make it easy to be sweet. ~ Richelle Mead

Very well." Artemis blinked, her sweet lips parting as if she didn't believe what she'd heard. "What?" "I'll do it." He turned to go, his mind already making plans, when he felt her fingers clutch at his sleeve. "You'll take him from Bedlam?" "Yes." Perhaps his decision had already been made from the moment he'd seen tears in her eyes. He had a weakness, it seemed, a fault more terrible than any Achilles's heel: he couldn't stand the sight of her tears. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

I spread my fingers outward,
letting the knife tip of my
middle finger rip the sky as
it tares a rift in the moon. ~ A.P. Sweet

Sulfuric ether was sweet and hot, pungent and burning to the palate. It did not smell the least, to Nardi, of turpentine, but rather of large, white, oversweet flowers, fat, fleshy, prehistoric in their size and substance. He thought of these flowers as fringed, mouthed, and pistiled with sticky aroma, with pink-tipped, translucent styles and stigmas that moved in flower throats like beckoning fingers. Lush, languorously heavy, meltingly ephemeral, an indulgence to the New World tropics or an Old World greenhouse - something akin to night-blooming cereus. Ether, to him, was the nectar of such flowers, gathered and carried in the mouths of foot-long bumblebees, its aroma as old as Egypt, as modern as white walled hospitals, as personal and familiar as his own vague euphoric befuddlement. ~ Judy Cuevas

I want to make you never want to leave from under me." Stitch gave him one more kiss before finally pushing himself up. Stitch had no idea he had already reached his goal, but Zak was a reasonable man, and he wouldn't make teenage-worthy promises or declarations. Life didn't work that way in his world.
Instead, he reached back with his hand without yet looking up. He was heavy with lazy, sweet exhaustion.
"What's this?" Stitch chuckled and pulled on his fingers.
"Nothing. Just wanted to touch you," muttered Zak, slowly turning his head and sprawling his cheek on the blanket to look back. He took a deep breath when Stitch pulled out his cock, leaving him boneless.
"You can touch me whenever you want." Stitch smiled at him with his eyelids lowered. He was the picture of satisfaction.
Zak snorted and pulled on Stitch's hand, getting to his feet. He didn't want to think about the bad blood left over from the spying. Or the broken window. "That's handy."
Stitch got rid of the condom and stroked Zak's ass with a lazy grin.
Zak sighed, looking at the large hand on his asscheek. "You know how to make a man feel special ~ K.A. Merikan

He cradled her neck, urging her closer. A bead of sweat trailed down his back. She dug her fingers into his waist, giving him all the invitation he needed to explore her mouth. She tasted salty and sweet. The breath of her sigh danced over his tongue. She untangled their hands and swiveled onto his lap, wrapping her bare legs around him, linking her feet behind his back.

Mon dieu. It was too much - and not nearly enough. ~ Brynn Kelly

Kitty, I am sorry if I misled you but..."
"Oh, shut up." She rolled her eyes and slid next to him placing her mouth on his ear. Evan groaned as he felt her fingers on the tent at his pants. The scent of her skin hit his nostrils like sweet, exotic perfume and right then he longed to bury his head in her shoulder, to eat her out and make her cum before he fucked her ass. "I know what you need and all those filthy things you crave to do with her. Punish her, claim her as really yours, fuck her till she screams, make her beg on her hands and knees. ~ Lilah E. Noir

GERTRUDE
Gertrude Appleman, 1901-1976

God is all-knowing, all-present, and almighty.

--A Catechism of Christian Doctrine

I wish that all the people
who peddle God
could watch my mother die:
could see the skin and
gristle weighing only
seventy-nine, every stubborn
pound of flesh a small
death.

I wish the people who peddle God
could see her young,
lovely in gardens and
beautiful in kitchens, and could watch
the hand of God slowly
twisting her knees and fingers
till they gnarled and knotted, settling in
for thirty years of pain.

I wish the people who peddle God
could see the lightning
of His cancer stabbing
her, that small frame
tensing at every shock,
her sweet contralto scratchy with
the Lord's infection: Philip,
I want to die.

I wish I had them gathered round,
those preachers, popes, rabbis,
imams, priests – every
pious shill on God's payroll – and I
would pull the sheets from my mother's brittle body,
and they would fall on their knees at her bedside
to be forgiven all their
faith. ~ Philip Appleman