Evidence of Cannibalism Found at Jamestown

“…Notheinge was Spared to mainteyne Lyfe and to doe those things which seame incredible, as to digge upp deade corpes outt of graves and to eate them. And some have Licked upp the Bloode which hathe fallen from their weake fellowes.” –George Percy, 1625

Father, forgive me, though I know what I do.

When I asked for my daily bread, it couldn’t

be found. We buried Jane because we were

taught to prepare the body for resurrection

from the dead. Believe me when I say that eternal

life was on my mind when her corpse was

grinding between my teeth. Am I to blame?

I couldn’t outstrip the impulse to survive. That

moment of lucidity when I was chewing on the

body was a re-awakening after the animal had

taken my brain. Every love feast we are told to

thresh again the body of our Lord Jesus Christ,

and yet he still comes to us in one piece, restored

whole. Even as the beast seizes me, when I’m

down on my knees (in supplication), tearing at

that slab of meat, fresh in its grave-hole, I do

consider that God can gather the pieces of

that misshapen puzzle–she was the true Christian

that winter–her body gave us life,

sustained our community.

***

Caleb Westbrook is a high school teacher with degrees in both English and religion. He lives with his wife and two children in Antigua, Guatemala, and his poetry seeks to reflect the strange dance between the everyday ordinary and the transcendent unexplainable mysterious. His poetry has been published in Havik, Nassau Review, Glass Mountain, and Time of Singing; and he is currently querying his debut novel, a Gothic, speculative fiction.