And On A Serious Note: Healing Fires

When the bleeding woman
touched his robe with pale fingers
healing sparked to life in his young body, leaped away –
Love’s flame fanned by her faltering breath,
caught, burst forth, consumed in an instant
the crackling manuscript of private pain;
in an eye-blink, cauterized her history.

He had no choice;
fragile faith is so combustible.

She had no choice;
grace is inextinguishable.

Get close enough to it, you will get burned.

What happened after she went home?
Did she walk lightly, as on embers? Did her breath smell like incense?
Was she warmer to the touch? Did she glow from within?

Or did her neighbors only notice
in her wake, the irritating trail of ash?

Sweep it away, they said,
sweep it away.

What would I risk touching to that robe,
so that it incinerates?
What life’s story would I throw at his feet
as kindling to be utterly consumed?
What bleeds in me?

And when he asks again, if ever,
who touched me?
who touched me?
- will it be my voice or another’s to reply?