burntcork | Christus Victor

I bungled it:—that carrying-
my-cross thing. I lost it
somewhere. However, Christ
dropped his too, I suppose,
a few times. But didn't he
have a sponge of wine
to paint his lips? Wasn't he
speared? Once, I pissed blood
after a drunken, eye-gouging fight
over nothing, some song. But
I won by losing, by being
punctured, by rolling a stone
away from my skull. Wasn't I
hammered there? Weren't my legs
broken? Didn't the sky crack
like a bone?

About the Author

A bluegrass mandolinist and native Arkansan, J. Camp Brown teaches creative writing at Culver Academies in Indiana. He’s received fellowship from Phillips Exeter, Ole Miss, the University of Arkansas, and the Arkansas Arts Council. His work has previously appeared in Copper Nickel, New England Review, Shenandoah, and elsewhere.