Jesus takes my carefully planned calendar
and throws it out the window
where the birds eat it.
Jesus touches the hem of my clothes
and instantly I fall ill. Bedridden.
Jesus says, Woe to your puritan work ethics.
Didn’t my father say
you shall have no other gods?
I don’t think of my days as gods
but they are sneaky ones
I stuff to the brim with things I can say I did.
But not today. Not this week.
I am a body, broken. Immovable.
I lie, waiting for my own spirit to return.
Why, I ask Jesus, even though I know.
Enter my rest, he says, tucking me in
but I kick and whine like a toddler.
I’m not tired, I say as my eyes close
against my will. How is this yoke so difficult
when my burden is so light?

This article appears in October 2023.

Meg Eden’s work is published or forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Poet Lore, RHINO and CV2. She teaches creative writing at the University of Maryland. Her novel, Post-High School Reality Quest, was published by California Coldblood, an imprint of Rare Bird Books.