You Are Not Christ

By Rickey Laurentiis Rickey Laurentiis

New Orleans, Louisiana

For the drowning, yes, there is always panic.

Or peace. Your body behaving finally by instinct

alone. Crossing out wonder. Crossing out

a need to know. You only feel you need to live.

That you deserve it. Even here. Even as your chest

fills with a strange new air, you will not ask

what this means. Like prey caught in the wolf’s teeth,

but you are not the lamb. You are what’s in the lamb

that keeps it kicking. Let it.

This poem first appeared in the Collagist.

Source: Poetry (November 2012).