by Jeannine Hall Gailey

The voice it was in the storm

in the fire in whirlwind

spoke to me and told me

and it was in my veins

it left a scar inside my arm

the many needles

the bone the blood

knit me together in my mother’s womb

and said it is good

but things went wrong I complained

and he opened a river inside me

and he said it is good and

my tongue grew silent in the shadow

and inside my brain exploded with light

holes illuminating the disintegration of nerves

that tell me left from right that tell me when

I’m spinning I’m spinning God catch me I’m slipping

the swift tilting the backhand of God left me broken

let me fall

behold do not be afraid of the light

An aching hip a broken ankle my lips screwed tight

the many places the angels have touched

and left me limping

God spoke and my angel wears a tunic

sewed up with my scars

Wholly, Holy, Holey

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Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. She’s the author of five books of poetry: Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and Field Guide to the End of the World, which won the Moon City Press Book Prize and the SFPA’s Elgin Award. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Notre Dame Review and Prairie Schooner. Her web site is www.webbish6.com.