Almost Taking Eucharist

First of all, I am protestant.

I protest everything: sanctuaries that echo,

robes that billow, mothers who die.

Especially mothers who die.

Second, I am Scottish. That bagpiping

of Amazing Grace in my left ear

conjures in my soul a heath-buried

ancestor who grins, using my lips.

Third, I once shared an office with her firstborn,

making headlines and junk mail. We listened to the loud

of Violent Femmes and Jethro Tull: “You

can excommunicate me on my way to Sunday School.”

Because of this or in spite of this, I almost walk

the ten yards to the man in the dress. And I almost

register a protest with the painted Jesus hunched

in the concavity that joins wall and ceiling.

Hunched as I hunch in he varnished pew,

trying to mumble any one of ninty-five theses.