Easter Morning

I’ve made
a life of losing.

Most recent; self.
Lubricated like
cake pans with butter,
slippery and never sticking,
fat-soluble and burning
hot. Sneezing in the
banana bread was
never a pastime of mine,
hiding my head as
breasts heave,
teeth clatter,
and screaming echos
of where’s
the fucking coke!?
Body went out
with the mind, tied
both ends to horses,
and split down the middle
at a graveled crossroads.
Mass of ripping flesh,
thrusted loose and
devolved.
Tight and sullied,
bleeding and dis-
connected,
the morning lappings-up
of frothing dogs.
And, always, hope.
The first and last thought
in the stinging crotch
of slumber, waking up
to remember
goslings all gobbled,
and passing out
without so much as an
inkling that survival
was worth it once
wrenched from the anus
of a fox.
They say,
down by the riverbed,
to go find Jesus,
and he’ll be eager
to show off his battle scars,
that if you put fingertip
to fissure,
feel around in the
wound, then there
will be a rush of
hope, overflowing.
I was never a man for
religion, and I’ve fished
around in my own spots
of emptiness. I could
run my fingers over my
lips, my tongue, my teeth
for days,
and still I won’t believe
in resurrection.

-Adam Parrow