After resurrection, Jesus acted strange,
materializing through solid wood,
even though he didn’t look
that different. The gashes seeped still,
varnishing the tentative hand, the fingers
that need to know him new.
Let me say how strange I feel,
trusting this to be true—that a body
can be both mortally wounded and
whole enough to dodge decay,
As though, half-emptied of
corporeality, halfway to heaven,
his hands were still bony enough
to gut a couple lake fish and grill them,
taking multiplication to the next step.
Of course, he was always more
than one thing at once—utterly one and
utterly other, now dissolving into
thin air, now reassembling anywhere
in some new tongue of flame.
