Poetry Tuesday: "Somewhere Between Side Dish and Dessert"

It's been awhile since I offered a poem here. Since I've just had one published in Big Muddy, let me post it today.


It's part of the series that I began long ago, before I knew I was starting a series, poems that try to answer the question a childhood Sunday School teacher asked, "What would it be like if Jesus came back today?"

The poem also perhaps tells more than I want to acknowledge about modern miracles. Do I yearn for an end to world hunger or just my own hunger? If Jesus came back, would I want him to put the world to rights or just my closets/storage space?

Or is it just a poem about the nature of love?

You decide.


Somewhere Between Side Dish and Dessert


Jesus came by to cook dinner.
He knew I didn't have time to get to the grocery
store. He knew I'd been living
on fast food, and he took pity on me.

Jesus knows that we want to taste
joy, and Jesus knows our secret desires.
Jesus fried up succulent chicken, meat
falling from the bones. He mashed
potatoes with cream and butter
and carefully separated grit from the greens.
He made that sweet potato casserole
that lives somewhere between side dish and dessert.

To end, we ate a cobbler
made of peaches, luscious though out of season,
topped with drifts of vanilla ice cream.

I fell asleep, fully sated
for once. When I awoke,
Jesus was gone, but my fridge was full
of leftovers and gallons of sweet tea.
Clean dishes gleamed from my cabinets.
Jesus had even rearranged the linen cabinets
and washed my dirty laundry. For weeks,
the house stayed clean, the fridge full.