No one will know but the three of us,
you and me and her in that room.
It could have teetered either way
(aren't so many things one nudge away from disaster?)
She could have said that one last thing you could not bear.
You could have said nothing at all.
You could have left in a huff,
her pride shredding behind you.
But you stayed and she stayed
and word by word you worked your way to truth.
After the sharp eyes, the serrated consonants,
then softening, the heart's voice in each of us
finally brave enough to stand up on wobbly legs,
and say, I feel. I ache. I feel. I never meant.
To feel. To you. Sorry. So sorry.
No bread multiplied into loaves,
no water turned to wine.
No one walked on water or calmed the sea.
We were not draped in holy vestments.
A cancer did not suddenly disappear,
the chain of lottery numbers did not reveal a winner.
No one named Saint Somebody was within miles.
It was just you and me and her
letting the goodness steam up through the boiling,
cleaning the pores of the skin between us.
A miracle metastasized from cells run amok
because we lasted through the pain.
Until the words that were fists
became fists that were hands,
and the hands turned to palms,
until our love lines and life lines were exposed,
belly up to healing.
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