Incarnation

by J. Morris

I saw the vein’s blue channel swelling far

below. I saw the landscape of my forearm:

fertile peninsula, hair-forest

irrigated by the map-blue rivers

of blood. Freckles and warts

like mesas or mined-out quarries.

My giant finger reached down to goad

the channel up and back, reversing the flow,

causing a flush, a flood in the Land

of Hand and leaving an indented

dull-pink bloodriver bed,

tendons, a dry arroyo.

Then I removed my damming fingernail.

The channel ran blue again, plumply swelled

against the sky’s skin. I felt

the warmth and push of my own blood.

Mighty-fingered god,

I birthed into a body,

the terrain became, terribly, my own flesh,

my left arm, myself. God, how can we be

linked by liquid, twined at feeble

joints, so softly covered, so cobbled

together out of wetness

and heat? And be ourselves?

Originally published in Other Poetry. Reprinted by permission.

Today is the Feast day of St. Barbara, patron saint of artillerymen and miners.