Breakfast by the Sea of Galilee

Breakfast by the Sea of Galilee

Jeannie Whitlock

Most tender of iconoclasts,
You smash the jutting plates
I rig around my rawest places,

Slipping past the shards
Of shattered trust and knockoff innocence
With which I kludge my fences.

Tilapia crisps, whole. Scales,
Chainmail of the fish, flicker in the glint
And flutter to coal; Peter blushes.

You do not fear our jagged edges: Do you love me?
We, not You, who need the answer;
Wholly filled, You feed.

Our hands neither staunch nor salve Your wounds,
Though, once drained, we washed your leaden limbs:
You wash our souls. You love from scars

With a stillness of self that has heard
The clatter of altar sticks
Before the thicket bleats.

Fierce with joy, You play, poking the fire,
Your hands pierced and healed,
The fragrant fish flaking open.

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Jeannie Whitlock
Poet & Writer

Jeannie has been published in Christianity Today, Roads & Kingdoms, Story Warren, and more. She is writing a book about embodied delight. Find her at jeanniewhitlock.com or on Titter @jeanniewhitlock

Photography by Tim Mossholder