stiff
heavy fingers on the back of my neck.
My mouth is empty.
5
You roam the streets of this city
and I follow, close
enough for the fringe of your robe
to lap at my ankles, but far
enough for a herd of wild elephants to pass.
2Your eyes are searching for one
innocent memory,
when God was quiet,
nights were dreamless,
and men paid no mind.
3Your eyes are searching the city squares
while I am searching
your eyes.
4A branch switches at my legs
and I fall.
5My cheek is torn against the coarse sand
and a man’s foot is hard on the small of my back.
6He kicks me over and I scream out:
“Jeremiah!” but no voice escapes.
He has a face harder than rock.
7O prophet, you roam the squares
searching for integrity,
and all the while it is trailing behind you,
8here inside me is integrity and goodness,
wonder and love, yet you never turn back,
you never turn and see.
9Is my prophet foolish?
He hears the obvious blare of horns
but is deaf to my silent cry.
10Are you not a prophet?
Can you not hear my unspoken word?
“Jeremiah!
“Jeremiah!
“Jeremiah!”
11He takes me with bruising grip
to the ravaging tent,
beats me upon my already bleeding scalp.
12The branch comes down as a switch
and with each blow
I see a shock of white light.
13An anger wells up in my throat,
strangely, not toward him.
No, toward him I feel profound sorrow.
14I feel the need to explain
that he has made a mistake,
that I am everything good left in Fair Zion,
everything beautiful hidden underneath,
and he does not realize, 15he thinks
I am just another street rat,
he does not know that I am the keeper of a love,
a love of a prophet.
16This is a mistake.
I can forgive a mistake.
But you . . .
17Why should I forgive you?
You have forsaken me, Jeremiah.
18How is it that you listen to God
the Most Secret
and cannot intuit my longing?
19How is it that your eyes are filled
with the rot of this city,
and are blind to the blooming
in my heart?
20And how could you keep
walking and keep searching,
and how dare you
take your infatuated God with you
when I am the one,
21I am the one who needs Him,
and needs you, stupid prophet!
and needs help
and please rescue
my integrity
which is the
only integrity
left, in this
22biting on my lip
and marking my neck,
23in the corner of my eye I see a child enter the tent
and glance over at me and my destroyer,
and he sees the child too,
shoos the child away
and tears my dress.
24Curse you, Jeremiah!
You have betrayed me!
~wrote Anatiya.
25Blessed child peeks into the tent again.
The man stabs under my skirts with the branch,
26a tree branch!
Of all things!
There is an insane laughter in my gut.
27Good-bye God! Go on and trail Your chosen like a pup,
leaving us alone to fend off Heaven’s cruelest ironies.
28A light, willowy sneeze from the tent flap,
young voyeur,
awash in afternoon light
chewing on a scythe of carob.
A glance to the side,
29is the child his son?
I turn and grasp a rock
and pound it once against his ear.
30His son pulls back and I roll out from under.
The man twists over with a thunder in his brain
and I run.
31I see my legs running and remember
the long arms of the stillbirth.
Strange connections.
32I know the man is not following me
but I am no longer running from him.
I am running from you,
33you who have proven to be mere wind.
You who care not
if a leopard lies in wait.
33Good-bye Jeremiah!
Cling to your God.
I shall surely forget you from afar
~wrote Anatiya.
34I have an enduring spirit,
perhaps even an ancient spirit.
35I run until my body is hollow.
A sheath of rock is before me
and vines with bitter berries creep up.
36I nestle in the back of a yawning cave
and blackout sleep overtakes me.
A nightmare surfaces out of the black,
a vision out of the tar . . .
37I