Tabernacles

by Graziano Marcheschi

It happened fast.

A feeble-brained innocent,

    refugee from half-way spaces, moving at the wrong time:

    the Bread raised high,

    the Cup engaged in mystery,

    and he chooses this time to change his seat

    from one church side to the other.

    For a moment his head blocks the view

    Of bread yielding to miracle.

    For a moment his face and the bread are one.

    The words spoken over broth.

    Then hands shake, extending proper peace;

    cheeks meet,

    words wish a peace the world has never tasted.

    He stares, like a dog offered too many bones at once,

    and accepts only one hand's greeting.

    Next comes procession to his first meal of the day

    as faces clearly wonder if he understands what this is all about.

    He takes the proffered piece of pita

        in this most post-Vatican assembly

    and stops.

    Momentarily thrown by this bread with pockets,

    he's oh-so-gently reassured that it's quite all right to eat.

    He takes

    and green teeth masticate the Body of Christ.

    Then he reaches for the syrupped goodness of the cup

    (Just three sips after him I debate the wisdom of changing lines.)

    His puffed-cheek mouthful nearly drains the cup.

    (I almost wish he had so I wouldn't need to tell myself I won't catch some disease.)

    And then

    (I knew it!)

    he coughs

    and sends forth a rosy mist

    that sprays Divinity onto the floor.

    A rainbow comes and goes in that unexpected spray

    as gasps are quelled in forty throats.

    He clamps his mouth with leaky hands

    looking like child

    trying to keep a pricked balloon from bursting.

    Unslackened, the line moves on

    and Divinity is trampled by shod feet

    till pure white linen,

        ----bleached and starched----

    in fervent hands that won't permit impiety,

    drinks the pink God from the floor.

    In a corner he sits alone

    in rapt humiliation.

    When someone asks, "Are you O.K.?"

    he quickly shows his palms and says,

    "I didn't wipe them on my dirty pants, I didn't.

    I rubbed them hard together, see?"

    and he demonstrates, with insect frenzy, how he used friction

    to evaporate the spilled God from his hands.

    Oh, what a cunning God who tests our faith

    by hiding in green-teethed

    tabernacles

    to see how truly we believe

    in the miracle of real presence.