Jesus Christ had a Potbelly at the Last Supper
Jesus Christ had a potbelly at the Last Supper:
it was, after all, a Roman wine, and he drank, after all,
a hobnobs' helping's worth—
and the bread, always the bread!—a brittle brown loaf
the color of sand or of skin,
and so many things never mentioned:
not the fresh pears, or fava beans,
not the olive oil spill, not the bone salt,
not the seven spices and
certainly not the fennel—
they never, I say never, paint that wiry root.
Jesus Christ, covered in vinegar, dipping his wedges and shreds,
filling a belly the way a girl fills a birdfeeder:
until it swells.
Cock-crow came and Jesus Christ carried a cross
heavy as seven suitcases, by water’s edge and the edge
of trinity’s park
he lost that sloppy sac—
worked off his father’s feast,
worked away all his mother’s skin
that potbelly gone ghost—never to resurrect:
they hung only a spangled ivory charm
on that metal hook,
a pious pendant for those wide oak shoulders—
and at that day’s dusk,
taller than palms,
more crooked than curled,
in the salmon glow of sundown:
that pendant pearled.
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Erica Miriam Fabri is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and received her MFA in poetry from The New School. She is the author of the chapbook, High Heel Magazine, and her work has appeared in Good Foot, Paper Street, The Teacher’s Voice, MiPoesias, OCHO, and SHAMPOO. She has performed her work and facilitated poetry workshops at a variety of venues and through organizations such as Poet’s House, The Brooklyn Public Library, The PEN Prison Writing Program and Urban Word NYC. She currently teaches creative writing at The School of Visual Arts and at Baruch College of the City University of New York (CUNY). ericafabri.com