A Plastic Statue of Christ

It is Good Friday. We are sad and quiet

and dark. In the midst of knees swollen

from kneeling, standing, kneeling again

approach altar boys bearing a colored

crucifix as silence sweeps the pews.

It is Good Friday, so we do not move

too suddenly. As the crucifix is stationed

at the front of the altar, people line up like

pilgrims to kiss the plastic feet of Christ.

I whisper softly the lyrics of

Weight of the Wood, my mother’s dying

face on my mind.

Were you there when they

crucified my Lord? the choir sings. No,

but I was there when my mother was

for hating plastic statues and creaking pews.

I was there when cancer crucified her

breasts, then liver, then bones.

Were you there when they

crucified my Lord? they echo again.

Sometimes it causes me to

tremble

tremble…

I approach the cross, its synthetic

Jesus glued to the wood with sad

eyes, and I kiss the little feet, fixated

on the red paint meant to be blood

and the black marks meant to be wounds

and I remember the way skin feels

when there is no heartbeat

underneath.

Were you there when

they crucified my Lord?

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