\u201cI can see into people,\u201d
\nshe declares, stirs birch branches
\non the surface of the pool,
\nlegs pinked by the bath
\nand the beating with saplings
\nshe takes regularly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen someone is sick,
\nI see\u2014intestines are knotted,
\na palsy in his knee.
\nI tell him what tea and exercise to take.\u201d
\nShe sucks and gathers breath,
\n\u201cThere are no doctors where we live.\u201d<\/p>\n
Television pictures her\u2014
\nlast day of high school,
\ndecked out as Queen of Spades,
\na gigolette, a blond girl,
\nquacking with her friends.
\nShe draws the best diploma,<\/p>\n
And winds a free ride
\nto the Medical Institute:
\nstethoscopes, X-rays,
\nand electron microscopy.
\nThe mothers of the cripples
\nweep to see her go.<\/p>\n
He read until the veins of the windowpanes
\npulsed with Ein Sof,
\nand when the glass burst from its leaded frames
\nhe shut the book and went forth<\/p>\n
from the library under the green
\nof the ending day,
\nand evening so long and bird-like preened
\nthat an egret flew out of the sky.<\/p>\n
She was pale as the arm of a woman
\nspread in dance
\nand though her species was not human,
\nhe tried to show her his love.<\/p>\n
Pulling three woolen strands from his coat,
\nhe laid them on the embankment,
\ngestured and stepped back to coax
\nher visitation.<\/p>\n
She flew in, the narrow-limbed egret,
\ntook his strings in her beak,
\nand as evening was swallowing the sunset,
\nstick-walked into the dark.<\/p>\n
He rushed forward onto the riverside loam
\nof the delta\u2019s stinking jaw,
\ncoat dragging in mud, ecstatic, her name,
\n\u201cI see you, Shekhinah!\u201d<\/p>\n
hums with constant mechanism:
\nthe squall of wheels on rails,
\nthe trolley\u2019s trilling door
\ndelivering to travails
\nthe secretarial technicians
\nand the working poor.<\/p>\n
It patters like the brick makers
\nforming Wordsworth\u2019s path;
\ntheir fingerprints in clay
\nreveal in aftermath
\nindustry as ghost-maker,
\nof the driven day.<\/p>\n
Conscience cups her ears
\nagainst the sluicing squeal
\nof bleed-steam heating cut
\nby a band saw carving steel,
\nand the seagull veers
\nover swamps at Wamiset.<\/p>\n
The city in me has seen
\na million midnight rides
\nof frenzied rebel thought
\ndismissed when morning chides
\nthe student for his spleen
\nto distort the lesson taught.<\/p>\n
Here, hard grind and hope,
\nsunspots on Hancock\u2019s dome,
\nthe river seaward flows,
\nI cycle speeding home,
\nto wash in balsam soap,
\nsplint my little woes.<\/p>\n
REBECCA BELLA is a translator and a poet. She grew up in Boston and has lived in St. Petersburg, Russia. She completed the BU Poetry program in 2005. She’s currently working on a play in verse and a collection of poems called Beautiful Nobody<\/em>. She will be living in San Francisco as of July 1, 2006.<\/p>\n (c) copyright 2006, Rebecca Bella; author retains all rights.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Healer Seen on TV \u201cI can see into people,\u201d she declares, stirs birch branches on the surface of the pool, legs pinked by the bath and the beating with saplings she takes regularly. \u201cWhen someone is sick, I see\u2014intestines are knotted, a palsy in his knee. I tell him what tea and exercise to take.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":71,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/88"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/88\/revisions\/89"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}