Cynthia Trenshaw
Communion
With reverence
I offer him a piece
of finest chocolate.
He says,
offhandedly,
that he can take
or leave it.
Horrified,
I snatch it
from his fingers,
hold it up
before him.
This is like Eucharist,
I explain. If you don’t believe,
if you are not devoted,
you’re not entitled
to partake.
He asks, Do you really
believe that,
about Eucharist?
Not always, I confess.
But always
about chocolate.
Cynthia Trenshaw has served as hospital chaplain, midwife to the dying, and massage therapist to homeless people on the streets and under the viaducts of San Francisco. She currently lives on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound. Meeting in the Margins (She Writes Press), won the 2018 Independent Publisher gold medal in Social Issues. Her first book of poetry is Mortal Beings, (Finishing Line Press, 2019). Her writing has appeared in over a dozen literary journals.
With reverence
I offer him a piece
of finest chocolate.
He says,
offhandedly,
that he can take
or leave it.
Horrified,
I snatch it
from his fingers,
hold it up
before him.
This is like Eucharist,
I explain. If you don’t believe,
if you are not devoted,
you’re not entitled
to partake.
He asks, Do you really
believe that,
about Eucharist?
Not always, I confess.
But always
about chocolate.
Cynthia Trenshaw has served as hospital chaplain, midwife to the dying, and massage therapist to homeless people on the streets and under the viaducts of San Francisco. She currently lives on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound. Meeting in the Margins (She Writes Press), won the 2018 Independent Publisher gold medal in Social Issues. Her first book of poetry is Mortal Beings, (Finishing Line Press, 2019). Her writing has appeared in over a dozen literary journals.