Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “God’s Love Language is Physical Touch” by Cheryl Chen, winner of the 2024 Lesley Strutt Poetry Contest!

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God’s Love Language is Physical Touch

By Cheryl Chen

He tells me this on our first date. The candlelight ripples across the skin on his face. He looks a bit like a sunfish, or like a children’s toy that outgrew itself. Sorry I’m late, he says. There was traffic and the roads were indecipherable. I say, No worries. The waiters come and go, each dressed like they are performing at their first violin concert. God pokes at his spaghetti. I nudge his calf with my foot. I say, Hey, I don’t usually date men. God laughs and bounces his knees. He takes back his teeth, blinks kinder eyes, grows gills on his forehead. Better? He asks me. I say, Good sport. We sip at our wine and dine in silence. I confess that my knees hurt. We check in at a hotel down the block and lie on the sofa. The children above our floor flee around their room. I can feel God staring at me. I know this feeling—I am expected to do something. I slow my breath. I ask him what he wants from me. He tells me what I’ve heard three handfuls of times: Hold me. I open myself into a crawlspace. In my arms, he is weeping.

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Copyright © Cheryl Chen

Winner of the 2024 Lesley Strutt Poetry Contest.

Cheryl Chen is a queer Chinese-Canadian writer in Toronto, Canada. Their work has been recognized by the League of Canadian Poets Jessamy Stursberg Prize, Foyle Young Poets Awards, Scholastic Writing Awards, Eden Mills Young Poets Prize, among others. Their work has been previously published or is forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Toronto Young Voices Magazine, ARTWIFE Magazine, The Next Generation Volume V, among others. They are the founder and co-editor-in-chief of Peiskos Literary Magazine.

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