By Rich Boucher
I can’t give you the exact measurements
of hindsight, sorry, but all I do know
is that it makes no sense now, years later,
to consider that I really believed
I was drinking Jesus’ blood
and eating his flesh just on the say-so
of a priest who didn’t even know me,
but to maybe recognize my face
sometimes, on a Sunday.
Why would I have chosen to think
I was being a cannibal about God?
Why would I have desired to believe
I was the good kind of vampire,
with a deep-down body thirst for penance?
Why do drops of rain opt for striking dry ground?
What would a scarecrow do with a brain if it had one?
He would say, “The body of Christ”,
and I’d reply, “Amen.”
And then a miracle was supposed to happen.
But if transubstantiation could have been
spoken into happening that easily,
why didn’t I simply request
that the priest say, “The body of Lynda Carter”,
so that I could say “Amen” to that?
And then a miracle was supposed to happen.
The keys to a brand new Corvette? Amen.
A bank account that puts me in the Winner’s Circle
in Forbes magazine? Amen.
A miracle is supposed to happen.
The panties of my sixth-grade English teacher?
Amen.
Clutching at Straws 