"Lineage Is its Own Religion" by Jennifer Militello

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend June 14, 2017   Lineage Is Its Own Religion   Jennifer Militello

I was an apostle to the group of you, strangers who had known me since I was born. I ate of your flesh. I drank of your blood. Sipped the elixir of your moods. Put the remainders in the tabernacle, wiped the goblet clean with a cloth. The crosses branded into the wafers were your voices branded onto my heart. I heard you live forever. I heard you rise. The bones of you yield to the memory of flesh, and we count our blessings and also bless. We are bright in anticipation of death, we are living like fissures and set against waste, and the taste is bitter, left in our mouths. I am dying, I am dead, lord of the losses, lord of the faith. I take each breath and my chest expands. Now I stand knee deep in the muck unable to move, and if I dip my hands in, they will fill with bracken and all the thickness of each formless face, kicking up stones, until you are gone, mythic lisp the lips shape. One day, you vanish like a flash. Confessions in a dark room. Firmaments to read and spin like dice. I genuflect twice at the edge of your pews. I kiss the book for you. This is what the word of family can do. Sit at the round table. Break bread. In the beginning, the loveless made the world and saw that it was good.            Copyright © 2017 Jennifer Militello. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "This poem presents the family as a form of religion, with many of the same hierarchies, rituals, and hypocrisies. Though the organizational structure of the familial church is theoretically based in love and the development of our best selves, the realities that actually evolve through that complex space often lead instead to damage, estrangement, and distress." —Jennifer Militello   Jennifer Militello is the author of A Camouflage of Specimens and Garments (Tupelo Press, 2016). She teaches in the MFA program at New England College and lives in Goffstown, New Hampshire. Poetry by Militello   A Camouflage of Specimens and Garments (Tupelo Press, 2016) "A Windmill Makes A Statement" by Cate Marvin "The New Religion" by Chris Abani "Self-Portrait as Vincent Van Gogh in the Asylum at Arles" by Roger Reeves Help Support Poem-a-Day   Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The series, which features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. If you enjoy Poem-a-Day, please consider making a donation to help make it possible. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038