Two Poems About Easter

I. Bus Terminal

There’s a feeling like we’re all
Just sitting in a bus terminal
Waiting to be called for the line
And we’re pretending like each moment

Doesn’t have to be the last time
We see each other so we tell
Silly jokes, but what will happen
When my bus is called and everyone

I see after that is wearing a hazmat suit
Like the scientists on E.T. and I’m
Elliott and I’ve got to break out of here
And find a way to get my bike airborne?

And if I do escape and I reenter
Some kind of human
Community, will it just be another
Bus terminal to a different destination?

Do these transitions ever end?
I have longed all my life for people
I would sit around a fire with
For the rest of my life.

Instead, I always find my tribe
Several months before moving
Across the country and starting
Over and somehow I want to believe

That the archetypes are constant
And that I’m interacting with new varieties
Of the same person — maybe
One day I’ll see that it’s all been God

All along. God if it’s really just you
In all these bus terminals and hospital
Waiting rooms and DMV stations
And prison visiting areas,

Can we still make love?
I know that’s inappropriate
For a Methodist pastor to ask
And someone will draw up charges

Against me. Jesus said we will
Be like the angels when we’re with you
But does that mean we’re amorphous
With light instead of bodies

And would that mean that there
Would be no place that tickles or itches
Or wells up with aching warmth?
Because I wouldn’t know how to be

A soul if I didn’t have a body and every
White male philosopher who has fantasized
About just being a brain without a penis
Missed the mark exactly to the degree

That he was actively resisting his
Embodiment with his words.
Poor old masturbating Augustine
Who threw away his common law wife

And condemned the Western church
To centuries of sexual repression
Within which millions of little boys were
Fondled like I was in my church shower

Because pretending not to have a body
Didn’t start in the 20th century;
It’s been the engine of the entire enterprise
Of whiteness: if we can just get rid of our

Bodies, then we can just be pure capital
Or pure rationality and the world will run
With such perfect efficiency that all the
Improvements that could be possibly made

Through technology will get improved
Faster and faster on an infinite hyperbolic curve
So we literally reach the end of time
As Fukuyuma proclaimed.

Thank God for queer bodies
Who taught queer people to teach me
To love my body so that I’m not
Just rationality with feelings to repress.

Because I have a body, I can put
Down roots and not spend my entire
Life in a series of bus terminals
Making small talk with people

I will never have time to embrace
As complete friends; I have friends
Who love me and even write poems
About my spiritual process that

Show me how much they love me;
Oh market panopticon! Watchful viral
Eye, you will never love me,
And for that I am grateful,

Because so many toil as your slave,
Hustling to build platforms and run
For president and practice stand up
Routines on strangers in bus terminals;

Art is everywhere and we can delight in it
Whether we are playing in the dirt
Or sitting with styrofoam cups and bags of Cheetos
In seats that will never be good for napping.

Delight is the whole thing; learn how to
Do that and you won’t have to sit in the
Lotus position for twelve hours a day
Or infallibly recite perfect doctrine.

Find simple treasures in every doctor’s waiting room
And every airport cafe and every train
Lavatory because if you make your life art,
Then you will fill your heart with curiosity

And curiosity fully activated is the same
State of mind as orgasm except that
It lasts eternally; call it worship,
Call it holiness; or call it just being.

II. I Accept

Easter is a day for
New flowers to blossom
After a long, hard Lent
After we thought we were spent

And spit out and thrown away,
And we could not imagine the play
Of light in balance with life
In gardens of every size

Which are all fractals comprising
The fullness of your glory,
Since every nanometer you have made
Will blossom with your pregnant love.

We are being born from above
Every day, every time say yes;
We could not have guessed
That joy could be this:

The bliss of needing nothing
Since you are the flow
And you will take the words
Where they need to go,

And you will use whatever
Pots and pans you need
To wake the world up;
You have already sown your seed

Everywhere, there is not
A burden on me to guarantee
Results, ensure that your word
Doesn’t come back empty.

You can say the same thing
For thousands of years to other
Scribes and one day we will
Write in sync and think in Aramaic,

But it’s okay to have
21st century eyes
And not pretend to devise
The flawless hermeneutic

That withstands every critique
And finally offers the last
Word on every word of God
And every possible objection.

How do you tolerate the
Scholars who have packed
Their dirt into clay? They have no
Room to play or sow anew.

Still, you delight in the trivial
Cuteness that you see in
Everyone, even those who have
Mostly dehumanized themselves

And others; you said to love one
Another and especially our enemies
Because that’s the best peace:
When someone who judged me

Kneels at the altar and asks me
To join her and embrace
To become a spectacle of grace;
We all have a race to run

And the sun will love us
Into growing strong, as wrong
As we are, God only recruits
Amateurs to play his song:

People who haven’t made it yet,
People with forgettable lives;
He said that we would have
No form or mastery that anyone

Should notice us, and the louder
We declare the glory, the more
Despised we’ll be, but there are
People who will sit and read psalms

For six hours even saying some
Of them in French. Jesus did not promise
Empire — that’s Satan’s promise;
Jesus promises only a hidden family,

A secret, peculiar people
Who are both lifelong pilgrims
And absolutely at home:
I accept my family;

I accept the drum circles
Where I can be a poet:
I need no further accolades;
I will bloom where he planted me.