On a Good Friday

On a Good Friday I
sit at the table and swallow
Hallelujah’s like grandmother’s
grape jam. My hands
meet in sticky praise and

I smack sweet … blessed …

sin. I smack, manna in mouth;
hand in hand; stained napkin on
tiny right knee. I say blessed,

I say sweet, I say thanks
I begin

to say Hallelu — and

sin smacks me.

Purple is stuck to my cheek,
and Father sees that I
am the thief indulging in the wine

without remembrance of Him.

Because this is what I do: in
the middle of Communion, I forget.

Bread shoved in mouth with mid-conversation
thanks, food-in-face kind of praise,
I respond to my hunger pains

before I answer to His grace.

I wash sticky hands in the steel
sink, the purple stains my skin.
A reminder that it was I
who put Him there.

I scrub for days, days, day

And when I look back at
the wooden table, Father sits.
He is silent and loving
no “I died for this?”

So I return to the table as
clean hands, with mana
and grandmother’s grape jam

He tells me to give thanks,

I do. We start again.

xx, Hannah

P.S. Read Isaiah 53 today as a reminder; give thanks.