Ken Hada is a fourth generation Oklahoman, descendant of Danish and Hungarian immigrants: Gypsy poets, barn dance aficionados, art lovers, amateur philosophers, wheat farmers, preachers, teachers and common-sense craftsmen.

“These poems, acting as spare parts themselves, go into the making of one smooth-running, powerful engine.”

 - Diane Glancy

Author of Pushing the Bear

Blue by Page Getz

It started on her fifth birthday. She closed her eyes over a stale cupcake to make a wish on the crooked candle the sisters reused for every orphan. Shiloe prayed for a unicorn and when she opened her eyes, she was blue.

But no one else could see it.

The sisters thought she would grow out of it. But she didn’t grow out of it. By sixteen, Shiloe had been blue for most of her life, but the staff of St. Ursus forgot all about the blue problem when they discovered the sex problem— Shiloe’s habit of slipping into bed with staff and neighbors.

“Surrender. Ask Jesus to come into your heart— to save you,” the sisters told her every time she was caught. Though there was a cross in every room and around every throat at St. Ursus, Shiloe remained oblivious to religion. All of the girls were bad girls. It was the last house on the block for orphans who had been asked to leave everywhere else. But even the bad girls found Jesus. Everyone but Shiloe. They told her, “You have to invite Jesus into your heart— to be your lord and savior— to save you.”

 Father Lliam resolved the sex problem with a rubber and aluminum chastity belt he found on Ebay.  “Ask Jesus to come into your heart,” he said warmly, covering his eyes as the sisters locked her into it. “You have to submit to His will.”

Late that night, Shiloe tiptoed into the deserted sanctuary where the lights were out. She stripped down to the chastity belt and dropped to her knees under the towering wooden crucifix above the altar. She closed her eyes, stretched out her arms and opened her hands to heaven.

“Okay, Jesus,” she whispered and was surprised to feel an immediate rush come over her. It stirred a velocity of longing so deep it shook her breathless. There was no resistance. She wanted this. She tried to pray but couldn’t speak. A feverish hunger for this Presence seemed to have its own voice and she knew Jesus understood. A rapturous weight came over her. It pushed her back against the floor and she let it. Her nails tore into the tight binding of the belt, but couldn’t break it. “Take it,” she said, feeling His silver hands penetrate the belt until it dissolved into light. She spreads her trembling legs to receive the Body of Christ.

The next morning when the orphans gathered in the kitchen, they stared at Shiloe in disbelief. She was blue. Really blue. The sisters gasped and dropped their spoons.

“You were right,” Shiloe said, her eyes filled with the radiant and stunned rapture of a believer. “I’ve been saved. Jesus saved me.”

“How was it?” Sister Iris asked.

“Best I’ve ever had.”

The sisters scrambled down the hall searching for Father Lliam. They found him in the sanctuary, his stunned eyes locked on the towering crucifix above him that had turned blue.