Before my first communion, I clung to doubt
    as Satan spider-like stalked
       the orb of dark surrounding Eden

for a wormhole into paradise.
   God had formed me from gel in my mother’s womb,
       injected by my dad’s smart shoot.

They swapped sighs until
    I came, smaller than a bite of burger.
       Quietly, I grew till my lungs were done

then the Lord sailed a soul
    like a lit arrow to inhabit me.
       Maybe that piercing

made me howl at birth,
    or the masked creatures whose scalpel
       cut a lightning bolt to free me.

I was hoisted by the heels and swatted, fed
    and hauled around. Time-lapse photos show
       my fingers grow past crayon outlines,

my feet come to fill spike heels.
    Eventually, I lurched out
       to kiss the wrong mouths, get stewed,

and sulk around. Christ always stood
    to one side with a glass of water.
       I swatted the sap away.

When my thirst got great enough to ask,
    a clear stream welled up inside,
       some jade wave buoyed me forward,

and I found myself upright
    in the instant, with a garden
       inside my own ribs aflourish.

There, the arbor leafs.
    The vines push out plump grapes.
       You are loved, someone said. Take that

       and eat it.