At boarding school, I
the only Jew; the only
son of Abraham.
By fiat Baptist
come Sunday mornings.

Trays passed;
body and blood
from box to box—
bread, then wine.
The preacher robed
Genevan black
spoke of host.

Am I invited?    
What kind of celebration may I attend?
Infant fore-skinned, how do I belong?

Dressed in charcoal Sunday grey
we’d walk from school
and file into latch-box pews.
The trees koyo, then bare,
then budding green:
resurrection nature’s idiom.

Unbaptized, unshriven, unsaved,
I learned hymns
and prayed, chewed, swallowed god.

Who bakes holy matzo?
Jesus’s body. Mary Magdalene?

Does god love a party crasher?
Bring my own bitter herbs,
walk roads that do not pass
Damascus or Calvary.
After church we’d share
hard apple cider and laugh
at girls who squirmed
to look.

There were a few
I would invite
had I but known
the party’s moment,
its final destination.