At the His Supper Table Thrift Store, Long Beach, Washington

Abstract

Responding in Prayerful Obedience to the Command of Jesus since 1998Crystal cordial glasses and champagne flutes,Christmas bunny mugs and XXL sweaters, toastersand peacoats, cookie tins and cutlery: everything's 3/4’s off.The day before was stormy.I wondered how we'd managed to avoidthe silver firs and lodgepole pines raining down on Highway 6.According to archeologists, the Last Supperconsisted of bean stew, olives, fish sauce, lamb,and unleavened bread. Though Da Vinci painted Jesusand his apostles feasting at a long rectangular table,in fact they reclined like Romans. Heraclitus asks,How, from a fire that never sinks or sets, would you escape?At His Supper Table, we fill two paper sacks.I don't know four months from now shoreline temperatureswill rise to 125 degrees, killing billions of mussels, clams, barnacles,sea stars, and oysters, that thousandsof fledging birds will jump from their neststo avoid boiling to death. In The Ends of the World,I read people don't talk muchabout what happens after 2100, when Florida,Bangladesh, and New Orleans are completely submerged,when New York City, Boston, Amsterdam,and Venice succumb to the swells. My Aunt Judy says there's nothingmore important than knowing Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. Our brainslike ground beef, a conglomeration of chubby earthworms.Heraclitus said one thunderbolt strikes through everything,and the clothes keep piling up. It will take more than peroxide,more than prayers or hymns,though from the back of the store I hearCome, my Lord, no longer tarry. Take away my ransomed soul.