poem

 Divine

The best parts of the Bible are the ones unwritten

Like the time Christ was cutting his nails

By the quivering light of dying candles.

Or the divine piss that pooled

Around the roots of trees

While the dawn birds chirped

And the crickets sifted in the grass.

The sweat, the spit, the holy shit,

The rhythmic reverberation of His snore.

I saw Christ Himself today on the surgical floor.

This sunken chested old lady,

Skin like closeted leather,

Colostomy for an obstructive cancer

Bulging with gray sludge and foul gas.

She shook her spindly finger at me

And pursed her cracked lips.

Her yellowed eyes caught 

A glint of the morning sunrise.

Why so early young man?

I’ve just begun to freshen up.

For the first time in my life

I knew exactly what to say

But she’d already fallen back to sleep

And the words became too sacred to speak.

12/16/20