The body remembers, quakes away a frisson
as though the cool river ran still from your shoulders
beneath the treacherous sun, hollows out a growl
as though still hungry enough to break your teeth on stone,
suffer the delirium of flight, temptation to succumb
to the delegations of power and principality in return
for the bread of mercy; palms the smooth river rock
that once became a crumb gathered from a thousand
leftover from the fast that became a feast. All this
in the briefest lowering of the lashes, blinking away
astonishment that anyone would seek a baptism
of such dereliction, rinsing away glamour,
as chaotic and pluripotent as the waters over which
your Spirit brooded before creation began.

And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.”  Mark 10:37-39