It’s the day God died—
liturgically speaking. My brother’s out west
wearing costumes for money. My father’s on stage
somewhere in Florida feeling pretty Jewish
among the MAGA hats. My partner’s
printing emails for his father the CEO.
Ah, the men in my life. May they live forever!

Here in Nyack, a flock of strollers descends on Main Street
and the just-opened bakery has five months to live,
its freshly stickered Rising Above sign
already peeling. The priest understands—nobody
strips the cross like him who wants
to fight the pastor but holds off
another day, ordering a loaf of sourdough
from a wheelchaired woman who is actually quite tall
and swift as the register ringing up troubled numbers
that can’t keep the shop from turning into a burger joint.

I stand in the saddest, most boring church service of the year
among dentists and soccer moms shouting Crucify him!
though the crucifixion happened a while ago now.

My brother is walking out from the theater.
My brother is walking down the theater steps.
My brother is walking and then
he’s not walking. His lights go out. He goes
down where concrete strips his face.

Now is a good time for me to tell you what I know
about death: Nothing goes away but becomes
something else. The story goes: God watched
the son go down. Or, God was
the son going down. Or God was gravity. Or
God spoke in the voice of the people so to
bring that man down—he went

and became a lamb cut open.
He went and became August sun.
He went and became.
He went and became. My brother

sat up. A holy future
passed us by and surrounds me now.

Brother, we’re going down.
Brother, get up.

 

 

---

Lily Greenberg is the author of In the Shape of a Woman (Broadstone). Her work has appeared in New England Review, The Pushcart Prize XLIX, Ecotone, Foglifter, and EcoTheo Review. Originally from Nashville, she holds an MFA from the University of New Hampshire and lives in Nyack, New York.

 

 

 

Photo by Spring Fed Images on Unsplash