Jesus Poem
by Angi Sullins (reprinted with permission)
yes
let’s unbutton the collar
of the story
let the river rush back
into the pages
where it was once dammed
let’s speak of Jesus
not as a man nailed to doctrine
but as a wild god
muddy-footed laugh-lined
riotous with love
that couldn’t be tamed
by temple or sanction
not sanitized not separate
but rooted
relational
ravishing in his refusal
to leave the lepers behind
he was never tame
they just wrote him that way
so they could sell him in pieces
at the market stalls of capitalism
he was wild
like sap in springtime
like a boy laughing
with wine on his lips
and dirt in his beard
because he’d been
walking too long
with women who wouldn’t
stop weeping
he knew stories
like they were animals
feral things
with teeth and grace
he never offered purity
he offered belonging
not the kind you earn
with good behavior
and pressed robes
but the kind you fall into
weeping
because you didn’t think
anyone would choose you
he touched the ones
everyone else refused
to look at
called them kin
not project
not charity
not immigrant
not sinner
kin
he was not a ladder
to heaven
he was wild vine
and kiss
loaf and fish
the breath of spirit
when it cloaks
itself in humanity
he broke the rules
to make a table wide enough
for us all
then threw the table
when they tried to turn it
into a tollbooth
don’t look for him
in the gilded cathedral
look for him
in the hospice room
in the alley
in the mother who sings
to her hungry child
with no more food
in her hands
look for him
in the wild woman
who knows how to anoint
a broken god
with oil and story
look for him
in the man who
votes for kindness
instead of profit
look for him on that
old red couch
in the center of your heart
the one with the slouching pillows
stuffed with grace
and unearned mercy
it’s his favorite hangout
*****************
poem Angi Sullins – from “unmasking a myth” www.angisullins.com