After the knee, the neck, the thin incision,
skin stretched, pricked, pulled for needle,
catheter, scalpel, hope, horror, exposure,
expression rounding the bend to belly slashed
wide for the almost-dead, but still breathing,
or the foot with its faint zipper, arthritic but agile
enough. Even the sagging breast, dug into—
fear excavated—each weighty bygone biopsy
finally declaring what it needs to say, which is
here, now, before, after, between, everything
Rememberings is the story of a pop star, protest singer, and prophet.
I think the Galilee loved them
almost as much as I did.
Days waiting for fish, then hauling
nets through fresh fields of water, overflowing
with more than 140 kinds, scales and fins.
They spent nights mending nets, caulking boats,
bringing the balm of prayer to the sick hired men.
In our local grocer
I watch folks buy
at vast expense
tasteless, waxed
Red Delicious.
Surely that was not
what the Virgin offered
the Christ Child
in Memling’s diptych.
Unconsciously I begin
internally to chant:
Baldwin, Bramley Cox,
Cortland, Gravenstein,
Jonathan, Lodi,
Macintosh, Melrose,
Pippin, Rome, Russet,
Stamen, Winesap.