While I was fasting (tense: imperfect-ly)
I realized that I was about to break
(the law of) my fast early, accidentally—
but also on purpose—with a pinch-torn piece of bread and a tablespoon of water
right in between the first and second meals
I was supposed to be
skipping. It was a good handful
of hours before number twenty-four.
While I was realizing this catch (twenty-two)
I found myself
feeling shocked that I hadn’t realized this irony
earlier while I was feeling late to the party
I remembered (that they may always)
jokes about craving a bigger chunk of crust
on fast Sunday, so the awareness was there,
but I had never read this situation as a forbidden fruit—
Take, eat: (father’s words:) a bite that is both sin and virtue, as Eve knew
that the failure was built into the test, that
both fasting and partaking are always imperfect
and that inherent impossibility
is why we need the body and the blood as much as
we need the abstinence. That moment is not.
a trap, but the truth
a both/and
what we are remembering is that.
to transgress and to obey is sometimes the same thing.
Note: the quote in line 17 is from Jim Richards’ poem “To A Pear,”
published in Fire in a Pasture: 21st Century Mormon Poets,
edited by Tyler Chadwick.
