Tammy C. Greenwood
Body and Blood (Upon Finding Our Priest on the Bishop Accountability Website)
After Nickole Brown
Our first god was the man
to whom we whispered our sins.
Kneeled at his back, our breath
on his collar. Fishing for sins
like a tongue searching for fishbones.
How few they were then --
a lie, a covet, stolen candy from the dish.
On Sundays after mass, he became
mere mortal. Sitting at our dining table,
consecration bells replaced
by the clinking of his highball.
Our mommas and grandmas sat us
at kid’s tables in the other room, worked
in the rectory on weekdays, his ladies in waiting.
I never knew why
priests from our small church were relocated,
or why the women kept them close --
although many others did.
Years later I found him
dead in the database,
traced his carnage like locusts in a crop,
from one unsuspecting parish to the next.
They say the devil knows where to hide.
Sometimes he sits at your table
while you feed him from your hand.
And when he’s gone, you wonder how many
wafers and wine he’d transformed
into broken bodies, martyred blood.
After Nickole Brown
Our first god was the man
to whom we whispered our sins.
Kneeled at his back, our breath
on his collar. Fishing for sins
like a tongue searching for fishbones.
How few they were then --
a lie, a covet, stolen candy from the dish.
On Sundays after mass, he became
mere mortal. Sitting at our dining table,
consecration bells replaced
by the clinking of his highball.
Our mommas and grandmas sat us
at kid’s tables in the other room, worked
in the rectory on weekdays, his ladies in waiting.
I never knew why
priests from our small church were relocated,
or why the women kept them close --
although many others did.
Years later I found him
dead in the database,
traced his carnage like locusts in a crop,
from one unsuspecting parish to the next.
They say the devil knows where to hide.
Sometimes he sits at your table
while you feed him from your hand.
And when he’s gone, you wonder how many
wafers and wine he’d transformed
into broken bodies, martyred blood.
--
Poet and Printmaker, Tammy C. Greenwood is a Louisiana native residing in California. Her work is heavily influenced by the varying landscape and culture of both states she calls home. She is a 2023 and 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee and her work appears or is forthcoming in Rattle, Pinch, McNeese Review, Whale Road Review, West Trade Review, SWWIM, Door is a Jar, ONE ART, Rust & Moth, Orange Blossom Review, San Pedro River Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, Emerge Literary Journal, and elsewhere.
Poet and Printmaker, Tammy C. Greenwood is a Louisiana native residing in California. Her work is heavily influenced by the varying landscape and culture of both states she calls home. She is a 2023 and 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee and her work appears or is forthcoming in Rattle, Pinch, McNeese Review, Whale Road Review, West Trade Review, SWWIM, Door is a Jar, ONE ART, Rust & Moth, Orange Blossom Review, San Pedro River Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, Emerge Literary Journal, and elsewhere.