Corpus Christi, Body of Christ; black in the smoke, blackened lungs,
and a cancerous child is born from the ash
in the necrotic chest of the old man crying:
“I want to die where the crabs perpetually scuttle in a little girl’s red bucket
On the banks of the canal where the water is the bluest I’ve ever seen.”
Corpus Christi, Body of Christ; thick blood in a vein, love in vain
for the man in the hospital bed
who has many stories to tell but who can
only sleep now
and dream about sitting at the head of the table with Jesus.
His wife worries and she will die,
but she does not worry she will die:
she was beside him when he built the bombs, she prayed with a book in her lap
and drew the blinds in their home for
63 years –
we have enough blinds to build her a casket.
Corpus Christi, Body of Christ; sun on the asphalt, son in the clouds,
he was there in Jerusalem and he built the bombs,
built them so they would burrow into the runway and send the asphalt flying.
He sleeps in the room with vomit on the
carpet and is not roused by the clocks,
all 24 clocks as they tick away seconds
and wait to sing,
in the desert far from the canals, the crabs and the white haze of memory,
after the man in the hospital bed can pick up his fork and knife
and dine with his family in heaven.