- New Covenant
I’m not supposed to tell you how to stop bleeding, but I done it. Why, little sister, one night, she came running
up the hill, the biggest sliver of skin, white as an old moon, peeled back on her hand, the blood sticky and just a-running
down her arm, and I remembered what they told me, what was written on the paper later thrown into the stove and made ash by hungry flames running
along the edges; I grabbed her arm, clamped it tight, screamed against thin walls, head turned to heaven, the echo running
right back into my face, “and when I passed by my sister, and saw my sister polluted in her own blood, I said to my sister, live . . . ” with all that rust smell just running
into our noses in time with the rhythm of her heart, her wailing, the Holy Ghost’s hand around my neck, I rocked, I rocked until eyes rolled back and I swore I saw thoughts running
through my own brain, the stars, snow covering tombstones, the purple darkness beyond Jordan till the black came over us both, drums in our ears trying to catch up with our souls as they ran. [End Page 37]
Samantha Lynn Cole, a native of Beattyville, Kentucky, works as an administrative assistant for her alma mater, Berea College. While a student, her labor assignment was with Appalachian Heritage all four years.