i have no idea how many hours she toiled
in the community kitchen before i arrived,
but she’d made a *** of tofu stew, a bowl
of rice and beans, some spinach lasagna
soaked in marinara, hummus
and daiya cheese sandwiches.
diligent and dutiful,
without question,
without expectation.

an hour later, we stood in Lykes Gaslight Park,
doling out food to the houseless folks
who’d lined up for a vegan meal
when, out of the blue, a well-dressed
college student swaggered up to us,
his smile shimmering, and asked
what we were doing.

she brushed a loose strand
of hair behind one ear,
smearing a bit of sauce
across her cheek,
and said, “we are here to live
as if we are already free.”

they were sharing food too,
he explained, which was all well
and good. but we couldn’t help but notice
they’d never set foot here in the past,
that they only came out
when the season
passed into the holidays.

“you know,” he told us,
“you might not realize,
but the Lord Jesus Christ
is using you for the gospel.”
which seemed rather strange,
given that he’d be back
in his sanctuary before the year
was out, raising his hands
and praising his dead god
instead of standing beside us
every Tuesday and Saturday,
sharing.

but we remember the legacy
of the radical Nazarene,
the anarchic revolutionary
who fed five thousand—
a conquest of bread
with nothing but a few loaves
and some fish.
if you listen closely,
you can still hear him whispering,
“take what you need,
give what you can.”

we carry a new world
in our hearts and heads.
we don’t feed the hungry
to win a one-way trip to heaven.  
so when you forget
about the poor you use as a prop,
we godless few will remain
in the streets until every belly’s full
and capitalism collapses—
risking arrest, fighting abuse,
addiction and empty stomachs.