(a sonnet of Deborah)
Emma McCoy
I’m a God-given mouthpiece: a prophet.
They call me a judge, I can do that too,
watch the war-hungry men who would profit
from God’s wisdom, falter, in my news-room.
I was shocked, call me a maybe-quitter
when he came in, brawn-bared, and asked for me
I thought, what, you need a babysitter?
God has not hidden me, my mysteries.
He lays them all in lines like graveyard rows
and so I see from the hills, in visions,
a woman with a bloody stake who knows
a ground-teeth promise and God’s precision.
Human pride and fear tend to intermix,
I don’t care for your death-bound politics.