I really love your work
the way it is nailed by its wrists
to a cross
I mean to say
the way it gushes from nothingness
but words make a meal of me
chomp chomp
and isn't it Jesus
everybody is buzzing about
the way he was not wearing
a microphone
and did not own a camera
to self-record the curtaining
of himself
as he knew himself
tremoring up there on the grain
how did he wait for it
I cannot imagine
I can only make a small map
of my fingerprints
which are your fingerprints
and a roof
which is a human roof
and tell you
how good it is
to have a roof
before the sky.

—Melissa Broder is the author of the poetry collection When You Say One Thing but Mean Your Mother (Ampersand Books).

Copyright © 2011 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine.
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