Volume > Issue > Prayer after Communion

Prayer after Communion

A POEM

By Tom Noe | November 1983

Body, flesh and blood, feeling.

I have been here before, kneeling

in the snow, in dead-white zero.

This is a form I’ve touched before

and adored — a cooled cup,

a pool of liquid mahogany, a supper of the death of God.

Tensed for the tuggings of love,

I feel my way back, shivering,

past all the unnerving, icy touches.

Pew and kneeler hug me suddenly in confusion,

though they have seen me here before,

and all the while

the tiny glory of God

warms like an ember down within.

Pietà

“Does the darkness cradle thee Than mine arms more tenderly?”

— Willa Cather

Parting

Let the air be taken from me;

Let no water touch my tongue.

Though my…

Pain of Late Conversion

Have mercy, Lord, and by your blood

wash from my brain

the sly recurring pain

…