The Body Is Not a Stone
- The Body Is Not a Stone
In Caravaggio's vision of the sacrificethe boy's chest gleams, bare as the knife's tipand solid blade held by his fatherto the neck and cheek. This morningbefore the sun rises, I readabout the election. Shadows quickenin the leafless trees, the walls brighteningfrom passing headlights. My belovedasleep beside me. She turns andmurmurs as the sheet slips downher torso, exposing the knots of spine.As a child, I learned to fearwhat I couldn't understand—a stormwith the power to illuminatea field, or the way lightning can splita tree in two. God blessed Abraham.But one night the boy awakens,he braces against the oncoming touchof his father's hand like lightningcoming toward him to set the bed aflame. [End Page 106]
Helena Mesa is the author of Horse Dance Underwater and an editor for Mentor & Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets. Her poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day series, and elsewhere. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and teaches at Albion College.
