April 5: Maunday Thursday, New Poem, "Stripped"

Tonight, I'm going to church for a Maunday Thursday worship event.  It's starts at 5 p.m. with a potluck.  At 6 p.m., we're screening The Passion of the Christ in the church sanctuary.  (You can say what you want about Mel Gibson, but this movie is powerful and moving.)  After the film, we're going to celebrate communion and end with the Stations of the Cross.  It's going to be a very draining, but wonderful, experience.

I was actually in charge of putting together one of the stations for the Stations of the Cross.   I chose "Jesus is Stripped," which is number eight, I think.  Anyway, I wrote a poem for the station, and, since I haven't posted a new poem in quite some time, I've decided to share it with you today.

Saint Marty hopes you have a blessed and meaningful night.

Stripped

My stomach is round, a garbage bag
Stuffed with clothes bound for Good Will.
On my knee, two centipedes of scar
Where the leg grew too fast,
Made one side of my body two inches
Taller than the other.  A pink ribbon
Snakes down my brother's sternum
Where they opened him, repaired
The heaving muscle inside.
Across the crease of my wife's belly,
A line where they reached in,
Removed our son, blue as January.
We are all collections of scar and scab,
Rolls of skin, freckle and mole.
Stripped on Golgotha, Christ stood,
Raw as a temple ox, gutted, split,
Heart and viscera, all His secret parts,
Gleaming in the sun.  He stood
Before a mob that hid beneath
Armor and robe, veil and burka.
He stood, knew each of their hairs.
Each of their imperfect ribs.