Lovers of Gethsemane
by Asha Meade Cook
You broke yourself before me,
your flesh cleaved like bread.
You forced Agape into my mouth,
let its vinegar coat my tongue,
and didn’t watch as I spit it out.
Do you know what it is to feel
your ribs scraping against your flesh,
like matchwood?
I cannot explain hunger
I can only tell you that it hurts,
and I left your table
with starving eyes.
I have betrayed you
so I could walk the desert,
stretched your worsted thread
handed down by fate
and held up silver shears.
I left you in the garden with
with a mark of treachery upon your cheek.
as the ground broke beneath my heel.
You carried this death up the hill,
condemned by my crime,
as I prayed for the forgiveness
of a quiet sky.
I smell myrrh in the northern wind.
My lips still have the oil’s sheen.
I wake spitting up the taste of wine.
A blue mirage dries my skin.
I dig through the earth, quick as a scythe.
I bury my sins but they rise
and rise
and rise.