You know how wearing flesh is personal,
Inclusive of our vomit and our kiss,
Inclusive of our meager, pondered loves,
Our panic on the vast impersonal wheel
That grinds our fertile eyes to feed blind root.
You know how personal is dangerous;
And yet you put your knowing in our frame,
Your being in or dark, communal fears,
Your certainty inside our pitiful doubt,
Your sacred image in our ravenous minds.
And we consumed you, each one for himself
As holes of thirsty earth suck in the flood;
We lusted your perfection from our guilt;
We ate raw confidence from starving dreams;
We bowed before uniqueness, seeking us.
We set you on a sacrificial throne,
Replacing Baal’s isolating curse.
We made you idol; we enshrined your face.
We died for visions of your touching hands.
We prayed for pity and–to keep our sins.
We never saw you guidance, path or way,
But icon to appease a dreadful awe;
And, when you left the body to return,
We heard, “Wait dead for me until I come.”
You know how personal is dangerous;
And, yet you fed the seasons of the worm.
You let us drink your blood as mothers’ milk;
And, when your voice was stilled it raged in heads
So far from heaven in us–like a hell!