Jordon Briggs

STIGMATA

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In a courtyard In the heat Christ bore 39 lashes Bound to a stump. They say the woman fell ill In a courtyard. She saw Him. She saw the disciples clear As blood on the pillow When her wounds appeared. She said nothing. Told no one. Is our purpose ours? A slave master cast spirits And demons onto us. A slave master pealed Us from our land. A slave master Allotted us his name. Therese Neumann suffered, And bled by each vision, Each week— bleeding How He bled. She was a servant and it happened in The heat. She welcomed it. Her hair black. The wounds, like black pebbles In her hands and feet. I imagine her to have had His name— I imagine her to have seen His face. To have smelled His shit, witnessed the purple blood Sliding down his back, drenching The desert ground. She bled after she saw His face. Therese Neumann's face. See, when you take upon the name of your master— Your Lord, You inherit his debt. You inherit his spirits: his demons Dancing around in the fire pit Of his stomach— Speaking to his blood. You procure his marks. The Lord Was scourged on a stump, Then led and strung Up on a cross. The lash of the whip, And the bark of the slave bound To a tree sounds throughout The southern sky Draping over The weeds, the poppy, And cotton-- Over the sweaty, bloodied backs And heads beaned by the sun; A crown of thorns-- Blending in with hymns and The flutter of fire fly wings in the Musky air. I want to ask Why do masters do this? Why must servants take on the names of their masters? Why must we not have our own names? Jesus hung from a cross and like Therese, his people did not know their names.
The slaves took on the names Of their masters. Therese's hands were nailed. A side punctured. Marked. They took on their names. His feet: her feet Marked. His cry: her answer Marked. His death: her purpose Marked. The slaves did not want to take on The names Of their masters, but the survivors Of the trip— Beaten, starved, and stripped Of their skin, of their desire, And their names, Were fed their master's body. Their vision of the motherland Of themselves, Slipped into visions Of him, after being driven from The boat. His mouth, agape in The searing air Releasing screams, and hollers Matching the crack of the whip, Prayers of deliverance from his Destiny sliding onto the ground. His eyes filled with blood, With demons, And a foreseen ending. Oh Lord, please take this cup from me. I have been marked, but not forever. Is being forsaken a reward? Not forever. I now have ascended into His glory. I did not buckle, nor did I Give into my master's wishes And for that, I am eternal I secured a part of me you Could not see past your face Passed the mask you wore, Like the mask you think Christ wore. The mask Therese Neumann wore The mask I'm no longer wearing.

Jordon Briggs was born in Los Angeles and raised in Sacramento, CA, and reps both places. He has lived in New York where he also calls home, and currently lives in the Bay Area. He graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from Saint Mary's College of California and holds a BA in Film from CSU--Sacramento. Jordon is a writer, filmmaker, musician, and a radio show host. His writing has been published in Afro Lit Magazine, Non Plus Lit, Framelight.org, Identity Theory, and others. He thanks you for reading his work. Jordon can be found at JordonBriggs.com.