XXIII
STOMACH

In your stomach is the food they prepared           Luke 7:34; 5:2.
for your last supper, since you eat
and drink as a man among friends;
your stomach of ivory and sapphires,           Song of Solomon 4:14.
a shield that covers and protects
the physical center of your manhood
as it nourishes your body. Your mouth
sanctifies all that you chew and swallow,
turning blood into wine and flesh into bread.
Within it the law of God was established           Psalm 39:9.
to preserve us for His service.
On your stomach, like the point of shield
or the center of a bulls-eye, is the place
—a sunspot—where your body
was connected to your mother; through it
you received the fluid of our mother earth,
the blood for the salvation of our sin.
It is the hallmark of your Davidic lineage,
a proclamation of humanity, marking the spot
where the Kingdom of God touches that of man,
and they are joined. Your navel is the hub
that forms the axis of the universe.
During the nine months that you spent
in the darkness of your mother’s womb,
from the bosom of woman, the flesh of Eve,
you received the blood of forgiveness,
 the human blood that paid for our sins.
This spot shows us that You were born
to feel pain like the rest of us mortals;
You too, were a poor organism locked
within the dark prison of a human womb,
and during your prenatal dream you tasted
unconsciousness, the portal of life,
sampling the dark substance of dread
that is felt by the one who desires to live.
On top of Calvary your cross dug
a hole when it was planted in the earth,
the navel through which the blood of God,
filled with pain, flows into our mother!