Prepare the Way No, I’m not afraid I’ve been expecting this since the day I pointed my finger and spit brood of vipers into the desiccated air They’re lavish with their silk raiments and unworked hands They’re why I flagellate with camel hair and rope a leather belt against my need This is the costume Elijah wore— his eyes sparking above a fearsome beard People require their prophets to eat locusts and scoop handfuls of honey with dirty fingernails They came when I cried to them from the edge of a sand filled sea Followed me right to the Jordan River, I stood thigh deep, my legs gleaming like the fish who caressed my feet I baptized them to purity, the way my mother taught me when she said it was time and reminded me of the way I’d leapt within her womb when He came near She smoothed my spine and strained my ears toward heaven— so certain was she that I would discern the whispers What could I do but shout my truth? The city blazed with wickedness and writhed with sin on scented sheets So here I am— slumped against a wall beneath Herod’s palace The guards laugh to feed me meat and milk and poke their fingers into the softening glut of my flesh There was a moment when fear devoured my faith and I sent Him a letter, asked if He was the One And He answered—told me The blind are regaining sight, The lame are walking They’ve unchained my hands and lead me to the banquet hall where Salome sways a hypnosis I should look away, but the solidity of my stench cleaves clouds of incense and I hold her childish gaze She hoists a platter that winks with rubies and then I’m on my knees Metal bites my neck The dead are being raised He’d said The dead are being raised
Rachel Mallalieu is an emergency physician and mother of five. She is the author of A History of Resurrection (Alien Buddha Press 2022). Some of her recent work is featured or forthcoming in Nelle, A Gathering of the Tribes, Dialogist, Rattle and elsewhere. More of her poetry can be found at rachel-mallalieu.com
Amethyst Review 