“[I am the Lord that Healeth Thee]”
Photo by Gabrielle Johnson, Chasing Horizons Photography
A Poem By E.R. Skulmoski
After holding my breath for a while the sky finally turned blue.
And the edges of the moon bloomed into a wounded fruit,
like fur around a lipstick mark, pleasing to my eye, desiring my demise.
Before I could taste and see, it swallowed me
—enclosed by its sweetness and smile, only to be toppled
by words spoken at the wrong place and wrong time.
I leaned against the walls of its stomach, hoping
to find something solid to fall back on. A solace away from this place.
Instead, I fell back further into the softness of its rot, foam rising
at the edge of its wound. Green spores sprouting around my mouth,
it tasted so bitter, I bit my tongue. For my body was jealous for light to return.
For signs and wonders. For the sun to return to its rightful place.
All I wanted was a sign apart from being swallowed.
Thus said the Lord, the only sign I’d receive is a tree standing tall and proud
while being licked by a fire. Leaves burnt off. Defaced and blackened.
Said the Lord, it doesn’t care. Its charred arms still point to heaven,
waiting upon him, till he has mercy upon its ashes. Till he sends its roots
by the stream, for the day its leaves turn green again.
At arm’s length stood a seraphim, stoking the flames, smoking me out.
Woe is me! For I am that tree, sap oozing into a river, hurled into a swamp.
There, mosquitos rise up like an imprecatory psalm.
E. R. Skulmoski was born in Vancouver and raised in Hong Kong. She currently lives in the Interior of British Columbia with her husband and four children. Her work has been published in Ekstasis, Solid Food Press, and Vita Poetica, among others.
