I let them lay hands on me,
finger-fucking my soul
to cast me out
like a demon.
A circle around me,
rumbling whispered prayer.
All of the pieces I cut,
shed like dead skin,
expelled like a stillborn with a blueblack face.
Nothing was done without me
sharpening the blade,
drawing the dotted line.
Cut here, I said,
naïve and craving.
They started with my right arm
while I was crying Hallelujah,
the knife slow, blade
sinking deep
like the glory of the Lord.
Teach me the truth! I yelled,
face lifted to the heavens.
My right arm hit the floor,
elbow first,
bouncing with a hollow thud,
hananananana was crying from my mouth,
holy words from the soul of God
released with the blood spreading
across the green carpet.
A woman in the third row screamed
Hallelujah, and was struck down--
a babbling brook of holy
paralyzed light.
The hands grew hot
heavy on the crown of my head.
Down on my knees I was alone in a world
of humming and crying as the pedal thumped
my vision dark.
Take me, I whispered, my eyes on the holy blade.
They lifted the knife again
and my stomach turned
to water as the Spirit swam in front
of my eyes. You have the glory of the Lord
on your face,
they told me, He’s shining from you.
2 comments:
You had me at "Finger-fucking my soul."
But in all seriousness, it was wonderful.
What an amazing poem. As I was reading it I was replaying in my mind the summer I spent at my Grandmother's in rural SC and went to church with her and weeks of vacation Bible school. The preacher one Sunday made a plea for people to come to the front to be saved. When no one came forward, he told the story of a car full of children going home from church one evening and the car collided with a tractor-trailor. The two children who had come forward that Sunday were saved, but the one who didn't got trapped in the car, which was on fire. The children and parents said, repent, repent. But it was too late. Every kid came forward, except me. The feeling was very much like Langston Hughes's short story Salvation.
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