The Lamb at the Service
The sermon was already warm
when the lamb arrived.
Inside, they were singing
about the wolves.
Not wolves they had seen, exactly,
but wolves they had felt
in the old cellar of the body.
Wolves in the brush.
Wolves in the future.
Wolves in the hands
of anyone holding the wrong tool.
The preacher lifted a stick
and called it a compass.
The people lifted their fear
and called it light.
Go on then, he said.
Prompt your way to greatness.
Put down the brush.
Put down the pen.
Let the machine wear your soul
like a stolen coat.
And the room answered,
hallelujah.
They fanned themselves
with wet little certainties.
They pointed toward the ceiling
as if God had personally
come down through the roof
to endorse their panic.
Then the lamb stepped forward.
Not loudly.
Not with fire.
Not with a knife
hidden in the fleece.
Only with a small truth
held carefully in its mouth.
Excuse me, it said.
I think perhaps
you have the stick
around the wrong way.
I used the tool
because I could not reach myself.
I used the tool
because the door inside me
had rusted shut.
I used the tool
not to steal a voice
but to find where mine
had been buried.
And for one second
the room went quiet.
Then every frightened thing inside them
found permission.
The saints grew teeth.
The victims grew claws.
The rescued became righteous
with blood in their mouths.
Disgusting, they said.
Rotten, they said.
Wolf, they said,
to the lamb.
And the lamb,
who had only come in
because it saw the light on,
looked back through the doorway
at the others waiting in the rain
and thought,
oh.
So this is what they mean
by shelter.
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