Song for the Skin
Of unguents and oils
Lotions and balms
Salves and wraps
And scrubs and smears
To clean ourselves
We thank you O Lord
For water, water
Clear and complete
Removing the self-anointing oils
And making us all common
Dying to one
Rising to another
Echo
My soul taps a white cane
one step ahead of uncertainty,
whisking side to side for assurance.
Visionless, it has learned more by echo
than by true line of sight,
pleas and joys mixed
in a stream of inaudible
pings and screams
of triumph, anxiety
and defeat, at times,
like this, not returned,
the searching miscast,
the sonar either absorbed
or cloaked in response.
Like the blind man
who ignored the rebuke
of Pharisees and friends
to continue to cry out
for the mercy of Jesus,
as if by voice his passion made visible,
or like the woman who crawled
through the forbidding forests
of legs and royal robes
of the rich who would deny her
the touch of Jesus’ coat,
so I long to be,
so I long.
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