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POETRY

After Korah

A Levite shifted his shoulder
and a copper pole sprouted
from his neck. A Levite
shifted his shoulder
and a woolen hanging ate
the sweat of his scalp.
A Levite razed his palm
on a candelabra
and the blood beaded with sand
like an encrusted thing.
A Levite raised his palm
to steady God
and the sand beaded with blood
and what landed in the sand
was like a coffin in the shape
of God, the God that
went with him.

You were at every Friday
potluck, Sunday prayer meeting,
choral practice. You shook hands
and engraved each name
on the wornness of your palate.
I saw each amen counted
in tarnished silver thread, woven
heavy on your head.
In the shadow of your genuflections
stretched your loneliness.
Then one day you said
your god was dead.

A Levite wandered down a valley
sloped like a body
writhing, like a pelvic bone.
A Levite filled his eyes
on blue grapes twice bedewed.
A Levite yearned to slake his thirst
on coffered drink
and gum the thigh of holy
game, the portion of the priests,
inside his cheek.
A Levite lit his incense stick
to smoke out God
and God enfolded
him in a chasm of grit,
worm caught in terrestrial beak.

As for the matter
of the sons he left behind:
they would weather on —
that dead wood might green
and flush with downy buds,
the tender kind.

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Allison (Huang) McFadden is a law student and mom. Her poetry has recently been published in Solum Literary Press, New Verse Review and Clayjar Review. She has also written for Ekstasis, Cross + Gavel and The Christian Lawyer.

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Photo is in the Public Domain.