Friday, July 28
A STORY ABOUT THE ANTICHRIST
“The opposite of transubstantiation is a yeast infection
just as the opposite of wine is the grape seed
born of a grape fuck,” the Antichrist had offered
to her SAT prep instructor, which is how
she’d landed in detention now wondering
whether a Bordeaux or a zin converted more
readily into platelet and plasma. It must vary
by vintner and vessel, she thought, carving
a tiny, upside-down cross into her desk
with a raw corner of her switchblade comb.
She’d been itching for a Coors and a long draw
off the joint in her sock, and she prayed to Christ
the dean hadn’t ratted her out to the homefolk,
as if Christ was more than just an idea, but she knew
Christ was just an idea, and she still thought it was weird
she’d never read a single elegy for the guy
except in the way the whole religion is an elegy
for the guy, which she mostly admired
for its choral arrangements and galloping pastors,
for how it kept mistaking epileptics for saints
or for demons, for its unrepentant gore and the soft
lighting of the midnight mass at Christmas
and the blood in its cups and the flesh on its tongues,
none of which she would change a bit,
she thought. She’d do it all exactly the same.
(Jaswinder Bolina)