Poetry
December 2023
Jesus Sleeping
“A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion.”
—Gospel of Mark, 4:37-38a, NRSV
Late in the game I have come to love it:
the too-little boat on the curling sea. Mix it
with all my drinks. Don’t skimp. Every morning
I need me some of that storm story,
some of that calm yourself, small fry. Relax.
All those years I did not relax: loving
too many doomed people keeps you taut.
Good mornings drooped when I thought of
them. Nights were tense. You don’t sleep well
when almost all your friends are going to hell.
Not a Man
God’s not a man and that’s important. But
if he were here’s how he’d be: scrawny,
don’t you know, and with bad eyes from all
that reading after the angels have gone to bed.
Stuttering too? Yes, I think so. Humble
as the imperfect should be but seldom are.
Around him you’d feel no urge to suck dimples
into being, bite on your bottom lip. Flexing and
mascara would be as though they’d never been.
Pushing up his thick glasses yet again and
looking so funny you sob, he’d fumble, highly
distressed, for a tissue. Between you two on the
bench nothing would set up its frightened wall.
Bryana Joy
Bryana Joy’s poetry has appeared in more than 50 literary journals. She teaches regular online poetry workshops and her full-length collection Summer of the Oystercatchers is forthcoming with Fernwood Press.