SQN - Sine Qua Non - Issue Two - Journal - Page 72
SINE QUA NON
FIRST PLACE WINNER — POETRY
Nnamdi Ndiolo
Mea Maxima Culpa
What else is memory if not a Jordan seething with grief?
Like a leper drunk on the scent of a miracle, I stagger into mine—
pliant as the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation. My eyes exhume
my teenage hands reaching through memory’s obsidian veil. I find
Corpus Christi in another boy & my father’s belt blesses my body thus:
This is the mark of my wrath, wrought for the heft of your transgression.
Wear this in memory of me. My body obeys: Behold the handmaid of the rod.
Be it done unto me according to your word. I probe my marrow for melody,
find only misery fledging where the sun refuses to touch. When grief builds
its basilica in your bones, what melody can your marrow muster?
Father’s fury wears the face of the Decalogue’s first command. I searched
for God where I was taught: transubstantiation, a candle’s aroused tongue, &
my reflection trembling on a river’s skin. But Leviticus keeps kindling it's fire—
Because boys in love are bombs & Proverbs are short for petrol verbs.
Forgive me—I didn't know the price of my faith was my freedom, pawned
like Mother’s coral beads. Even Isaac turned heretic after Abraham measured
his neck against the blade of belief. I need the sun spilling across my face again.
I hope the morning breaks before I do. I swear, I am only a servant of love.
All I want is for Father to touch me gently. All the church wants is to torch me—
that belt celebrating Eucharist upon my back. What else is the Bible but a ballroom
of Pharisees shouting: The category is Burn! Burn! Burn! Witness my transfiguration:
desire’s disciple, animal refusing the leash. Heaven-hounded heathen. Blind spot
in God’s experiment. I kneel before my new god’s tabernacle to receive unholy
communion. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. I cup his nakedness—
veined cedar in my trembling altar-boy hands. The branches in my thighs ignite,
& ignite, & ignite. My father denies me thrice. & God nods.
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