Dinner with the Priest

1.

The grapes divide and conquer the blood stream,

the mac and cheese gums the teeth and

gums the stomach sack.

The baby throne tries to nail itself to linoleum

under the tiny emperor's temper.

The wife, the priestess, works grave

hours by the bell, so it is he, priest,

and we, husband and wife,

Christ and the church in deep love,

him shepherd and we married sheep,

here for the baby

is of course as lost as a little lamb

can see, and it is for that we feel

at such a great loss,

lost minds thinking about house and bed.

2.

It is because cornstarch

is the ancestor of our bones

pat-a-caked with the living waters,

waters the lamb knows so wetly,

that we liquefy when still,

ossify and set with pressure,

why at dinner dust scrapes

from our elbows onto the table cloth

and at night our insides wash around our skin

till all the folds in the bedsheet are filled

and we can’t get out of bed in the morning until we beat

our knees on the floor, our wrists against our chins.