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Luke Hankins

Economics

The roses have stopped charging for their scent.

Good thing for me.

I’ve lived out my days accumulating debt,

so slow to understand its weight

would never fall away.

Ah, sweet spring air

I don’t have to borrow a thing for,

that weighs nothing!

Post-Lapsarian Refrain

I can’t hear fall without thinking from grace.

I can’t hear good news without thinking for whom?

I can’t hear heaven without thinking farce.

I can’t hear salvation without thinking sham.

I can’t hear invisible without thinking God’s face.

I can’t hear faith without thinking mind game.

I can’t hear convert without thinking force.

I can’t hear church without thinking shame.

I can’t hear hell without thinking of course.

I can’t hear preach without thinking blame.

I can’t hear creation without thinking God’s choice.

I can’t hear unbeliever without thinking what I am.

I can’t hear God without thinking damn.

Luke Hankins is the author of the poetry collections MAGNITUDE: New & Selected Short Poems (forthcoming, Texas Review Press), Radiant Obstacles, and Weak Devotions, as well as a chapbook, Testament. He is also the author of a collection of essays, The Work of Creation, and a volume of translations from the French of Stella Vinitchi Radulescu, A Cry in the Snow & Other Poems. He is the founder and editor of Orison Books, a non-profit literary press focused on the life of the spirit from a broad and inclusive range of perspectives.

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