Washing Dishes at Freedom Fellowship

I touch my brother gently
upon his shoulder
and he startles
as a scared, small bird
flushed from a hidden, safe place.
"I am sorry," he says.
"I am sorry. I have only been out
of prison three days."
A body marked with a neuronal stigmata,
a chemistry violently scarred.
A touch is not the advent of grace
but an omen, sinister and foreboding.
A crucified body and mind
that suffers and carries our sin.

But the shared meal awaits us.
Our Eucharist of soup and bread.
The Table soothing the cellular trauma.
Synaptically resurrecting and recreating.
"Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you."

The hot water bites.
The dishes are baptized,
washing them clean.
My sister dries and shares of her surgery.
A pacemaker.
We rejoice that her heart now beats
seventy times a minute.
Each throb, as the blood flows through her,
a hymn of praise and thanksgiving.

Stars sparkle above the trashcans in the alleyway.
The moon shines off the white garbage bag crinkling and full.
Unburdening to end the work.
It is finished.

Turning, returning
home to the sanctuary of praise.

I hear the saints singing.

Guiding me through the night.