Varieties of Communion, by Gregory Emilio

The Vulture and the Little Girl, photograph by Kevin Carter (South Africa) 1993.

Varieties of Communion
​
Dear Lord, allow me to say that it’s not 
about hunger, thirst, or a plump vulture
patient as a tombstone: the way of nature.
Not the girl, more crossed than Christ, caught
in the photographer’s frame, a green knot
of spare grass growing around her finger.
Not ekphrasis, privilege, or aperture.
Not this damn image I thought I’d forgot.

Oh-God, Kevin. Allow me the blind hope
it wasn’t guilt that made you kill yourself.
You only saw that we’ll all be as bread
torn and scattered in the desert, our bones
bright manna abiding the soul, the self,
blessed in the shadow of a starving bird. 

Gregory Emilio

Gregory Emilio’s poetry and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review, Midwestern Gothic, Nashville Review, Permafrost, Pleiades, Spoon River Poetry Review, The Poet’s Billow, The Southeast Review, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. He was selected for the 2018 Best New Poets, and won F(r)iction’s 2018 summer poetry contest. He’s the Nonfiction Editor at New South, and a PhD candidate in English at Georgia State University in Atlanta.