eulogological reflection

    THE BODY OF CHRIST                                                            

The morning she died, I left the church

early, before the sun rose. I don't know

what made me go. My sore knees. My throat

raw with whispered prayers I heard the echo

all around me. I remember that sanctuary

filled with believers, their lips moving,

their faith so fierce, I, too, could not doubt

that my mother would stand, the swelling

in her arm faded, the snake's poison defeated

by prayer. And so I went outside to the deep

blue sky, where the first animals awake were flying:

a line of geese heading north, their wings

as perfectly aligned as the stitches in a buttonhole.

And I imagined the sky as a coat

and wondered who it protected:

God? Or us from God?

And when I turned back, the mouths

inside the church had changed

to solid lines. The men walking into the morning

did not meet each other's eyes, and

the women were left inside with the body.

                                                       Lenae  Nofziger

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