In this haunting villanelle, Will Stockton evokes both the sacred and the profane, calling up, as he does so, “a dangerous memory”
What Would Jesus Do?
To ask, “What would Jesus do?” is to ask a dangerous question, to call upon a dangerous memory, to call for a future that endangers the past. – John D. Caputo
To call for a future that endangers the past,
we hike to the lake, wear nothing to swim,
no youth group bracelets, become fishers of men.
Battered by a question we no longer ask,
we ask it again in water red with South Carolina clay,
calling for a future that endangers the past
set two miles back on a county road
to separate houses, states, crushed by desire
to become fishers of men.
Peter and Andrew left their nets to follow Jesus;
Duane, Will, and me: we follow each other back
to the body incarnate, to a future that endangers the past
in palms cupping feet, cheeks,
catch and release: toss into the air,
become fishers of men.
Dressed in the rain,
I take a picture of my brothers under bush cover,
flashing a future that endangers the past,
the day we became fishers of men.
***
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