The voice in my head is on its knees, either to pray or let hair fall over its chest like a mermaid. And I know both are best facilitated by getting wet, so I slide inside the Soul my father bought me and drive it to the old white chapel with the SALVATION IS STILL FREE marquee out front. But I keep going till I reach the new megachurch in the hollowed-out big box store.

It’s closed for the federal holiday, so I pick the lock with a credit card and follow flashing arrows through the concrete lobby, burst through the metal doors. And I face a clear kiddie pool on stage, so I walk the aisle like a bride in my red sundress, then climb. I take everything off before closed-mouth movie seats. I take everything off before silenced speakers. I sit coyly on the plexiglass edge, one foot in the water, but not for too long. Then I plunge in and sink with my legs pressed together, palms open to the sky.

And I come up 3 miles away in the reactor cooling lake, facing the rich houses. Covered in algae afterbirth, some half-woman thing, I perch on the fake rocky shore. I dry myself with hypothetical fallout maps and slip on a pair of denim cutoff shorts, as all around, the fathers prepare to blow their fingers off in pursuit of artificial stars.