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.

Thaws

Around our March balcony tonight
Fog closes its slight hand — illusive blue —

The Prodigal Father and His Child

“Well, Father, my share of the farm has

been turned into gold.

I take it…

To Phoebe*

Phoebe,

Gentle handmaid

Of us all,

Who assisted Paul

And others

Of the early church,

…