PARABLE OF THE GREAT BANQUET.
BY MIA S. WILLIS.
an ode to “the hungry artist (december 7, 2019)” by david datuna.
mere days after we paid our respects to chairman fred
we sat on the stoop slack-jawed as a man ate a $120,000 banana
shook our heads and mused that “the hunger’s gonna kill us first.”
sixty-second science class at the self-checkout
appetite / like energy / cannot be lost / only change its form
so when my stomach pockets are empty, i bite the armani-gloved hand that feeds me.
question: if the ancestors were sharecroppers living in eden on credit
what was the price of the apple?
question: if we still have not tired of tilling the fields without tasting the fruit
what is the value of our heads?
in the year of our lord two thousand and nineteen
jesus walks into / a brightly colored spectacle / peels forbidden yield
lets teeth break skin into bleeding / performs a miracle
then smiles as the centurions lead him away from shocked public
peace so still / it shows the cruelty in starving
commands its witnesses to go forth / multiply.
mere days after we paid our respects to chairman fred
we sat on the stoop slack-jawed as a man ate a $120,000 banana
shook our heads and mused that “the hunger’s gonna kill us first.”
sixty-second science class at the self-checkout
appetite / like energy / cannot be lost / only change its form
so when my stomach pockets are empty, i bite the armani-gloved hand that feeds me.
question: if the ancestors were sharecroppers living in eden on credit
what was the price of the apple?
question: if we still have not tired of tilling the fields without tasting the fruit
what is the value of our heads?
in the year of our lord two thousand and nineteen
jesus walks into / a brightly colored spectacle / peels forbidden yield
lets teeth break skin into bleeding / performs a miracle
then smiles as the centurions lead him away from shocked public
peace so still / it shows the cruelty in starving
commands its witnesses to go forth / multiply.
Mia S. Willis is a Black performance poet from Charlotte, North Carolina. Their work has been featured in homology lit, FreezeRay, Narrative Northeast, Peculiar, Slamfind, and others. Mia's poem "hecatomb." won the 2018 Foothill Editors’ Prize, earning nominations for the Pushcart Prize and for inclusion in Best New Poets. In 2019, Mia was named the first two-time Capturing Fire Slam Champion, a Lambda Literary Fellow in Poetry, the Young Artist Fellow at Chashama’s ChaNorth residency, a collaborator in Forward Together’s Transgender Day of Resilience Art Project, and a performing artist on RADAR Productions’ Sister Spit 2020 Tour. Their debut poetry collection, monster house., was the 2018 winner of the Cave Canem Foundation’s Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize and is available with Jai-Alai Books. Connect with Mia on Facebook / Twitter / Instagram @poetinthehat.