Close Encounter

What if Jesus came back as Jesusita or Jessy
with breasts and kinky, sandy-colored locks
sprouting from her beautiful poetic mind?

What if Jesusita Jessy touched me
the way the Bible says Jesus touched
the woman who was ill and fought
through the crowd to get to her miracle,
a miracle that did not have to see her
or know her name or even her pain, but
a miracle that just emanated so much
power and poetry that anyone in proximity
could not help but be transformed.
This woman, this witness feeling herself and her healing
would run shouting from the crowd awakened and stirred
touching everyone and everything as far as
she could feel and see and they too would be moved,
righteously rattled on the right side of themselves.

What if instead of me touching “the hem of her garment,”
Jesusita Jessy hugged me on the way to the convention center,
and we giggled like colored girls leaving psychadellic swatches:
fuschia, tangerine, and chartreuse along the sidewalk trailing behind us.
And I was in full fan girl surrender as she laughed at me
in love, not mockery, hugged me tight like I was something precious like
a poem that Ms. Lucille might sketch
on a napkin while watching her children play
on the street from her window or
a poem like Aunt Chloe would write
smack dab in the middle of novel,
a poem so wide and wondrous
folk would mistake it for fiction, or
a poem, Mr. Jimmy might recite
though folks caught up in the “fire”
of his tongue and pen often forgot
he wrote poetry too.

What if all this began on the way
to the next session of AWP 2018,
where I later sat front and center,
watched Jesusita Jessy anoint the stage,
bless the auditorium with her prayer/praise poems?

What if I ran into her at the book fair and asked her
for permission to write about our moment?

What if she bowed her head, nodded,
closed her eyes and replied, "Do it,"
and it would take me this long to write about it
because I am not a prophet, only a poet, or am I?
And even though she said, "Do it,"
was she really talking about me writing her/us a poem
or me writing a poem to bless the world as she
blessed me and so many others?
Was she really encouraging me to write a poem/be a poet at all
or just be and be human and reach to touch, uplift another
in this world so scared to face itself it has
painted, covered, crashed
all the mirrors...

Or was she simply saying,
"Go, 'head girl with yo' badass self.
You got this, had this
before you ever saw me!"

I got this.

I am running
through the multitude,
testifying - 
a prayer, a praise,
in honor of her,
in honor of the laying of hands,
in honor of the infinite ways
we touch the Divine,
transform one another,
morph into walking miracles of
what is still beautiful and possible
in a world cankered with chaos.

I got it.

And to think,
all this started walking past a taxi
with me suddenly dead-stopped
on the sidewalk as the door opened
and I declared, "Wait a minute!

Aren't you Nikky Finney?"