When My Father Met Jesus
by Cynthia Hughes
One evening the living room walls folded
down around him, and Walter Cronkite’s voice
unspooled to a wave thinning into blackness.
A star grew from the sky and landed in the yard,
a figure emerged. He could tell by the hair
it was Jesus, a certain brightness to the eyes.
My father stepped over the sill of the house
and walked with Jesus into the fields
down where the stream crosses the road.
They talked about their battle scars:
the betrayal of their fathers,
a sponge of vinegar, malaria in the Philippines.
They discussed how to feed the hungry
and love your enemies.
Why worry about your life? Seek first the kingdom of God.
He returned to the couch then for another fifteen years,
ranting, Love your neighbor, dammit!
And I come not to bring peace but a sword!
In his last days in the hospice room at the V.A.
he asked me to scribe for him, his voice
barely a whisper, but he wanted to get this part down.
So I typed the words fast as I could,
letters lifting off the paper,
love reeling around our heads like little black stars.
Cynthia Hughes writes poetry and music from her home in Southern Vermont, where she is a primary school librarian and teacher. Her poems have been published in several literary journals in the U.S. and have received recognition from poetry awards in the U.S., Ireland and Canada. She is working on her MFA and a first collection of poems.