‘Yeshua was hungry’ – Mark 11: 12 [CJB]
I
inside of me i have lost it,
the small prayer you say
when you’re empty of food…
‘you prepare a table for me,
even as my enemies watch’. amen!
i am not supposed to write this poem
i am not supposed to write about my
small voice that enlarged into a scream for grains.
II
my body has broken into smallness,
& my mother’s hands mastered
the miracle of silencing
the emptiness in my belly at nights.
[& Yeshua my mother said i am the bread of life. he who comes to me will never go hungry, & he who believes in me will never be thirsty.]
III
i have starved like Yeshua.
i have felt deep cut in my stomach like Him.
i have never died from hunger,
but i have shared the shape of pain in my mouth like Him.
Jeremy T. Karn (He/Him) writes from somewhere in Liberia. His works have appeared and forthcoming on 20.35: Contemporary African Poets Volume III anthology, The Whale Road, Ice Floe Press, ARTmosterrific, Lolwe, Cypress Press, The Minute Magazine, Liminal Transit Review, The Remnants Archive, The Shallow Tales Review, The Kissing Dynamite, Walled City Journal, Voice Lux Journal, Madness Muse Press and elsewhere.
His chapbook (Miryam Magdalit) has been selected by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani (The African Poetry Book Fund), in collaboration with Akashic Books, for the 2021 New-Generation African Poets chapbook box set.
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