The rapture creeps

in and wind chaps

any word dared spoken.

Jesus meets

believers in the sky,

the closest I come

to seeing his bloodied

hands is amongst

the clouds and sun.

From my blue porch,

I eat sour jelly beans

and watch bodies rise

to heaven. Paul was wrong —

no one is snatched.

True believers fly.

I have been waiting,

living in a temperate

deciduous forest:

maple’s lost leaves,

unclothed oaks,

the life cycle of color.

I leave my home

and the church sits still.

Once unwelcome,

I now kneel fat-calved

on the rough carpet

of the priest’s office floor

and try the crisp,

tasteless Body of Christ

with peanut butter I brought.

Only Mary, stained forever

against a slant of light,

sees me so relieved.