unripe banana

at the grocery store 
i always search for the largest bunch
i can find. no, this is not an innuendo
this is just me saying i don't just want
one bite. on the television 
there is a man talking about 
how he was healed by punching
his shiny new car. when i was younger
sometimes we would watch mass
on the catholic channel. i wondered if 
i put my face to the screen if i could
become eucharist. the body the body.
the blood. i wish the body were
something better than wafers.
we could all be eating bananas
& thinking about jesus. instead 
it's the cheap wine from the tinny metal chalice.
we talk about trying to form
some kind of religion in the wake
of leaving the church. i tell everyone
"i am a disciple of the unripe banana."
they laugh but what i mean is
when i get bananas i always 
get three green ones. the ones that
we will wait on. the gods i know
are never ready to eat. instead, they hover
in their green. a sweetness on the other side
of some war, holy or otherwise.
i try to find places to shop that 
don't support genocides. i end up
at a stand at the end of a gravel road.
there a dead man is selling bananas.
they are the wildest bananas i have
ever seen. every color you could imagine.
i don't know why but i panic. 
like they can't possibly be for me.
the starchy skin. the snap of the urgent flesh.
on the television they say,
"hold your breath when you go outside today."
the sky is red. the sky is gutted. 
one banana never ripens. i hide it
from everyone i now. leave it offerings
of eyelash hairs & stray salt.