Tonight's Poet Corner: Insomnia

Insomnia
by Belinda Roddie

In this moment, I remember:
Jesus's leaking body on plywood,
the twenty-three odd stab wounds
engraved like signatures in Caesar's
vessel. Only seven more, and it would
have been thirty, a nice even number,
pretend stigmata so the dictator-for-life
could have played a messiah as well
as a martyr. There are scuffs and divots

from blunt knives, from blunt nails,
on every wall, in every corner, on
every metal stovetop heaving hot
breaths, heaving coarse breaths,
waiting for the fire to be put out. It's
too much for their mouths; they want
water, they want wine, they want
cold steel against their teeth. In this
moment, I remember: The night you

nearly pushed me into traffic. The night
you landed a blow on the most curved part
of my back, and in an instant, I became
concave - a lens to see the world
differently with, bent frames and buried
fingernails in denim pockets. You claimed
you didn't mean to hurt me, but the bruise
said otherwise, and after a minute, I cried

as if I had been whipped. As if I had been
tortured. As if I had been forsaken like
some fragile, sacred child, and now, I
realize that I am valued less than
the faded sterling ring bearing its woven
triquetra. The father, the son, and the
who-knows-why-he's-still-haunting-me
spirit. Not holy in the slightest, but
in this moment, he remembers.