There’s nothing in a name, friend.
Let’s take a look at mine.
I trashed Belz so hard my uncles
sent emails apologizing to pastors
in other denominations, released
falcons with scrolls in their claws
carrying news of my reputation
having been shame-laden by me,
me alone, not them, they were
careful to clarify. They apologized
with blood seeping from their eyes
did my skeletal uncles, my fat,
worldly, bargain basement uncles,
my hollow-eyed, hoary-eyebrowed
sunken-chested uncles with breath
of cold coffee and postnasal drip
as they sat around session-like
contemplating how to save Belz,
what to do to restore Belz,
where to even find the best Belz,
celebrating under the banner of Belz
with their poorly constructed heads
barely attached to arbitrary torsos
overall, like bags of human parts,
while in my head I heard my God
promise a white stone with
a new name written on it, a name
no one knows but me, I heard
God asking, “What is your name?”
and me answering not Belz
but rather, “I never knew him,”
and God repeating himself until
I wept for rue. He asked “And who’s
your daddy?” This one I knew.
And now I go about as the girl
who saves Naaman, as the woman
at the well, as both the Samaritan
and the badly beaten traveler,
as the woman who grasps
Christ’s hem and thinks, Stop,
please Jesus, make the bleeding
stop, please make it stop,
and as the thief who asks
“What must I do to be saved?”