Disgraceland

Before my first communion, I clung to doubt

as Satan spider-like stalked

the orb of dark surrounding Eden

for a wormhole into paradise.

God had formed me from gel in my mother’s womb,

injected by my dad’s smart shoot.

They swapped sighs until

I came, smaller than a bite of burger.

Quietly, I grew till my lungs were done

then the Lord sailed a soul

like a lit arrow to inhabit me.

Maybe that piercing

made me howl at birth,

or the masked creatures whose scalpel

cut a lightning bolt to free me.

I was hoisted by the heels and swatted, fed

and hauled around. Time-lapse photos show

my fingers grow past crayon outlines,

my feet come to fill spike heels.

Eventually, I lurched out

to kiss the wrong mouths, get stewed,

and sulk around. Christ always stood

to one side with a glass of water.

I swatted the sap away.

When my thirst got great enough to ask,

a clear stream welled up inside,

some jade wave buoyed me forward,

and I found myself upright

in the instant, with a garden

inside my own ribs aflourish.

There, the arbor leafs.

The vines push out plump grapes.

You are loved, someone said. Take that

and eat it.