Jesus by Shi Yang Su (16, China)*

                 Jesus
my prayers chant before dawn
cross shine pure like morning sun
my deep piety prompts
hands to grip like mussels
scorching breathing floating
above stubborn clavicle
weep within my wonder
     Your Bible of my profanity

---

Jesus
     cheongsam clutch haunch
my garland of peony dyed by virgins
ancestors with bleeding wounds
taught for long
     My reverence in none
Yet still
     I sacrilegiously yearn for Christianity
 
I groan for blessed pardon
     guide for my soul’s eternity
a maid’s purity as a lamb
devout and let you define
pallid moonlight screw sacred oath
I lower head to pray hair glittering like raven
on shallow spring bed
I kneel
                 just like an art
 
Jesus
     my sin of bare foot within east
inundate Cathedral’s glamour
muteness invade convicted lung
flesh fill too full to crave
    in a time gathered by believers
 
Yet please
    praying the only redemption
even disciple in color of yellow
dedicated for Bethlehem pilgrimage
votary could not live in speciousness
    if vanity lure for saturation
sweet lemonade to take in or scatter
yellow-green foliage drown in juice
violet-green spot on their arms
worms twist out and out suck sweet bitterness
chrysalis of our heart core
so fear pushes me to flounder
to beseech belief
    The strength of dropping off my knife
 
Jesus
    prayer rise in dim darkness
and lament choir here to bury me under
    my eyes still open wider and wider
pray for my holy wonder
my tears may clean my sin of foreignness
my hands may now be firm enough to hold
when they shovel a small mound to lift me in
    I will lay silently and await in slumber
the glamour of your divinity  to drown

​