Transfigured by Ash Rowan I climb the mountain, alone: hand over hand and foot over foot, with no one to greet me at the summit but
birdsong and breeze and when I arrive, God whispers my new name into the morning mist: that by which I shall be known. calls me son, child, as I proffer my body upon Their surgery-table-altar— weeping, begging, to be fixed. then, I sleep: dawn’s light flows into every valley, and within my cavernous ribs. I am blessed, and ritually broken, molded, like wet earth into something greater. (but oh, Mother, oh, Father, it hurts.) and I wake; aching, raw, fingertips tracing fresh scars like the ones borne by my Brother,
in His hands and His feet. our new bodies (renewed selves) can never be what they once were— and, I think, that’s the point. my chest burns and, with a smile, I exhale. I climb down the mountain, alone.
