Following
· The Atlantic
His name followed
her around everywhere,
slipping out of well-meaning mouths,
tumbling forth from familiar faces, embarrassing friends
who knew better but made more of a habit of forgetting than
remembering she wanted nothing
to do with Him, but here He was as her aunt
passed the stuffing at Thanksgiving, each family holiday
reminding her He was the firstborn, her family’s favorite, Jesus
He was the older sibling who would never let her
forget Him, forget them:
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her childhood crush
her high-school teacher
her church’s priest who believed her
to be a phase, not a name, more choice than fact
jury be damned, the court ordained
a legal change but they could not make
Him be her, for she was still He
perpetually for her enemies
provisionally at the DMV
parenthetically for the politicians who apologetically
pleaded to the undecided voters in our divided county
who believed in Him, could agree on Him, could
more easily conceive of He and Him and His
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, my God He
was a given, was given, was God’s-given
how could He be given so much and want to become
her, a demand, an ask, an explanation
an aberration, a lesson
for her mother, a challenge
for her father, a pardon?
for her employer, an oh!
for her grandmother
and for her grandfather, right next to her?
he wanted her gone
wanted to slash the s right out of she
grab her, shake her until she forgot her ending
coughed up the middle, the aunt’s stuffing
dropped the r and left He, Him who was there at the beginning