Sixty Last Suppers

After the Artwork by Andy Warhol

A young, painfully shy, Warhola boy
kneels in front of a wall
of unhuman eyes
seeing through his overgrown bangs,
through the crust of his chest
through the hole
he’d one day hold together
with gauze and gauche grace.
A pupil before the pupils:
Be not afraid.

I sit like him before the faces
of a man who is more
than my mere humanity.
Sixty times more.
Over and over and over
I hang each view of the last time
Jesus sat with his friends before
he was rejected, denied,
misunderstood, attacked —
on the atrium of my heart.
A litany of identical identity.

By the time I reach the final frame,
the beginning is lost
and I start again.
I see the same shadows and spaces.
Different only in their placement,
time of day, and length of gaze
I give each one.
I am the difference.
If only I keep my eyes open.

Illustration by Blair Gordy Piras of Blair Barlow Art

Mallory Nygard is a poet and librarian in East Tennessee.

[This essay originally appeared in the Winter 2023 issue of Joie de Vivre. To purchase this issue or to subscribe to future issues, click the “Subscribe” tab above.]