I read the Book for years

And never understood a word.

Scrawled in its margins.

Wrote my own versions

Of what I read there,

But never got a thing right.

Didn’t understand that each

Poem was a magic spell.

Was a voice,

And under that voice: an echo

That was the spell.

As if each poem clearly spoke

The word “Death”

And the echo said “Life.”

Echo roiling the poem’s surface

As the angel was said

To trouble the waters

Of Bethesda’s pool in Jerusalem

So that the first person

To enter the water

After the angel had been there

Was healed.