From Willett’s new collection of poetry, Phases:
Transubstantiation
Bread should be of the sort
commonly eaten, declares the sotto
voce of the Book of Common Prayer,
attendants at the would-be grisly feast, we seated
goers of the fete prepare
our hearts to receive. What that means
for me is ignoring largely the lost and meager
symbol held aloft by this dumb garage
to the vehicle of grace; my own mea
culpa: the inability to transcend the image
of the body before me. That it breaks
cleanly in half, snapped along a prefab crease
is nearly as bad as the milky tinge
the wafers have, as though hadn’t
known wheat, earth, heat,
knead or rise.
We start: cleanse hearts, cleanse thoughts.
Deacons pass stacks of plastic thimbles:
single-serving sanitary shots of purple juice,
and write on our tongues the
difference in cleanliness and the god-
lines it’s next to.
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3 responses to ““Transubstantiation” by Mischa Willett”
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Quick footnote: Willett’s only “note” on this poem says, “Communion wafers are sometimes yucky.”
Well, aren’t they?
Sometimes.
Or “most always.”
Probably a great metaphor in that too!!
Thank you Mischa!