Jesus’s Lemonade

By Grace Safford

Iced cold lemonade

Jesus

selling it on the side of the road.

The sun

beating down on him

turning the back of his neck red.

The cicada buzzing,

his ears turning deaf at the sound

when it reaches its crescendo.

White bedsheet with a rip on the shoulder

and frayed rope

tied around his waist

cover his body,

as he sits at his fold out table

with a buckling leg

and a white linoleum surface

spotted with dirt colored burns.

His pitcher,

coated in beads of never ending sweat,

sits next to the “Free!” sign

peeling at the corner.

“Freshly squeezed!”

threatening to be pulled away by the wind.

“Recipe over 300 years old!”

stained with bird shit.

He smiles at the man with the sun glasses

walking his dog,

holding a blue plastic bag

embellished with a smiley face,

and a cigarette

shedding ash like snow.

Jesus holds out his lemonade.

The man lets his dog piss on a fire hydrant.

God leans out the window

of his two-floor complex,

an acid-green apron

dotted with daisies

tight around his neck.

“Let them eat lemonade!”

he calls down to his son.

Jesus nods

as he stirs the yellow liquid in his pitcher,

and looks down the empty street.