POETRY
Holy Week
“Holy Week” read by Mary Hills Kuck.
Acrid incense curls through palm fronds
Breathes dread and joy, death and life
Intimate feast, loaf and cup, mystery and treason
Mingle with love. Cleansed feet tingle.
Kiss suspends sleep-drugged fear, persistent pleas.
Errant sword portends pain, death. No, Father.
Darkness hangs, interminate. Charcoal glows, candletips
Puncture night, haloes rise like quickened bones.
Women, bent, carry ointment, cloth. Tomb-cave gapes.
No body? Fear.
‘Mary.’ Sky splits, alabaster rays fan, stretch, waft.
His voice, his hands, good news.
Mary Hills Kuck, a born Midwesterner, has spent most of her adult life in the US Northeast and in Jamaica, West Indies, where she and her husband served as ELCA missionaries. Intermittent Sacraments, her chapbook, was published in 2021 by Finishing Line Press. Her full-length book, Before I Forget, was published by Kelsay Books in 2024. She has received a Pushcart Prize nomination.
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Image: Entry of Christ into Jerusalem by Anthony van Dyck (1617).
Heart of Flesh Literary Journal 