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title: Invitation

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# Invitation
**by Kenneth Weene**

At boarding school, I 
the only Jew; the only 
son of Abraham. 
By fiat Baptist 
come Sunday mornings.

Trays passed;
body and blood 
from box to box— 
bread, then wine. 
The preacher robed 
Genevan black 
spoke of host.

*Am I invited?				
What kind of celebration may I attend? 
Infant fore-skinned, how do I belong?*

Dressed in charcoal Sunday grey 
we’d walk from school 
and file into latch-box pews. 
The trees koyo, then bare, 
then budding green: 
resurrection nature’s idiom.

Unbaptized, unshriven, unsaved,
I learned hymns 
and prayed, chewed, swallowed god. 

*Who bakes holy matzo? 
Jesus’s body. Mary Magdalene?*

Does god love a party crasher?
*Bring my own bitter herbs, 
walk roads that do not pass
Damascus or Calvary.*
After church we’d share 
hard apple cider and laugh
at girls who squirmed 
to look. 			

There were a few 
I would invite 
had I but known 
the party’s moment,
its final destination.
