Over my Mother's Shoulder

((A rough work-in-progress, but I need this to commemorate my last night home for awhile before I lose the feel of it.))

I read her Bible in the church service.
I decipher one-word prayers
along the margins and I see
where I must get it.
Over my mother's shoulder

I watch the old man
who used to sit with me
on Sunday mornings. The walker
rests against him as delicately
as his head sinking into grainy hands.

He seems to be in pain and I am grateful
for his sake that we're
about to take communion. They call it
the Lord's Supper and it strikes me
how strange that sounds against my

now liturgical ears. I stayed at home
an extra night because I hadn't been
to a Baptist Eucharist in years.
The time had come to be reminded what I left.
I want to ask my father

why he let the wafer pass this time, but
the silence seems to bring us closer.
A sudden interlude on the piano
chimes out "O precious is the flow" and
I watch the man who's hurting.

Perhaps his bones are breaking
like the way Christ broke the bread.
My old Sunday School teacher consecrates
the body with his incessant "Dear God" refrain
I've been smirking at since middle school.

I now hear it as a rhythm no less crucial
to the mystery before me than
the young man leaning against the older
to keep him from falling out of his seat.
And I weep because it hits me,

"Nothing but the blood of Jesus"
runs through each and every moment.
My born-and-bred-in-Hobart pastor
dismisses us for fellowship and
in his own country-boy way

describes communion as just beginning.
He said it a little differently than the priest
down in New Orleans but it pierced my heart
more tenderly than the others have before.
And now I see just why I stayed.