“Maitreya” © Tybee Maitri

 

What Could I Say

It didn’t surprise me at all when she
told me she had seen Jesus one morning,
crouching in the corner of the blue bedroom
just over by the dresser.

That room hadn’t been blue for years
but I knew the one she meant.
There He was, the answer to her prayers
and her just lying there in a thin, yellow gown
eyes closed, hoping for better days.

It must have been a delight to both of them
seeing each other like that, for she was a pretty girl
and Him, a handsome, white-bread Jesus, hair serenely
parted in the center and left to grow awhile,
like the pale hydrangea by the window.

I’d like to have seen the boy or the man myself,
all those summer nights I spent in that room,
cousins humming to sleep beside me while I declined
the pleural of agricola, agricolarum
letting the arum roll around on my tongue.

What could I say but the same thing she did
so many years ago?

“Help me Jesus, help me.”

 

Beverly Cartwright is a writer currently residing in Richmond, VA. She is at work on her first collection of poetry as well as a memoir. Her work has been previously published in Oddball Magazine and Raven’s Perch.

Tybee Maitri is an artist living, healing, and creating in Western North Carolina with their cat Muchini. They studied Studio Art at Simmons University and love learning.