Verily . . .

Verily . . .

Must  [we] hold to our icy hearts

a shivering God?

                                                Denise Levertov

                                                Agnus Dei

 

I don’t know a whole hell
of a lot

about lambs—

I know what I’ve been told

growing up that God

would turn into one

and in CCD the teacher would show me

paintings and Jesus would be

on his knee and lambs

would be at his feet

and she’d said a lion waited

Satan maybe? or?  No she said

                because she knew innocence too

                and men,

                heavy crushing men,

                who culled the herd

                and took the babies away

                from their mothers

                and there was none no one

                                to save them and it was easy

                                picking them and they went

                                willingly and were blamed for this

                                and accused

                                of a great sin

                                of tempting them all

                                                with their small genitals:

                                                their balls and no breasts

                                                and the smooth places

                                                on man called Grace with a capital G

                                                while he stroked them and everything

                                                in between and told me

                                                I won’t remember

                                                a thing

                                                                and I don’t

                                                                mostly only the ghost

                                                                of the lion on the cliff while it

                                                                was happening

                                                                shadowed and old

                                                                                too old

                                                                                maybe

                                                                and some days when I hear or read or see

                                                                the battered children come to me

                                                                I tell you I feel them in me

                                                                like a limb

                                                                that’s gone, that’s been sawed off

                                                                without my sayso 

                                                                as though it didn’t belong to me or I didn’t need it

                                                                like two hands are too much but not enough

                                                                for stopping it

And one by one the lambs are led

to the table, stood on a chair

and stripped and the audience—small

                                but sickly and familiar—

was a man and his companion

                Goldy in a wheelchair

                clapping her hands saying

                Oh look at the little boobies

                and they laughed                       they all laughed

                and then led me quietly off

                                and the lamb

                                went to bed and touched all the lost

                                places and the ghost lion rose

                                and laid beside me

                                just like in the image

                                from CCD, of Jesus, of the children, suffering