"Dancer and Dance" [by Jim Cummins]

Dancer and Dance

When he was young, he thought his narcissism
was anguish; but it was just narcissism.
Everyone’s in some kind of anguish or other—
or do the Protestants merely suffer?
Protestants buy things; it helps the pain.
Catholics buy things, too, but it doesn’t help—

Protestants don’t get how things “accrue.”
They gain their purchase on the earth
by purchasing it. No vestments, incense,
mumbling over wafers, in the economical church—
no folderol, no magic tricks, no ghosts.
And certainly no “Stations of the Cross,”

reminding you every Sunday of anguish
you couldn’t conceive of. Not to mention
the shit you had to go through to be a saint—
a woman carrying her eyeballs on a plate?
Most of all, that body on the cross,
writhing in agony if you looked more closely.

Back then, when they crucified you,
they drove the nails into your wrists & ankles—
otherwise, your flesh ripped away
& the heap of you ended up on the ground.
They wanted you to die, but in agony,
on rough wood, not on a breast of dirt.

Of course, if they wanted you to die faster,
they broke your legs at the knee—that way,
you’d be lucky if you lasted half an hour.
But suffering is different from anguish—
anyone familiar with both knows that.
Suffering touches the body, but anguish

torches the soul. When they crucified Peter,
they turned the old man upside-down.
They said they wanted him to reconsider;
but really, they just wanted to kill somebody
that morning. A bright cheerful morning,
the pictures say, if you didn’t mind seeing

a gray-haired man, somebody’s dad or grandpa,
getting nailed upside-down to some wood.
I suppose, at the end, the old fisherman
got what he desired. You could even say
he saw it coming, spreading his arms out wide,
knowing he was the one that got away.

from Everday Knowledge by James Cummins (Dos Madres, 2025)

Comments

[Amy Leigh Wicks]

This took my breath away. Stunning.

[Amy Leigh Wicks]

This took my breath away. Stunning.

[jim c]

Amy, thank you! That means so much!

[David Schloss]

Breathless: holding my breath in the face of the unfolding of this!

[jim c]

David, remember, I know where you live ...

[Leah Martinson]

This took my breath away. Stunning.