He pulls me close,
presses down his two clay fingers
on the cut on my arm.
It’s cold,
like standing in the snow
with no shoes.
My whole body shivers.
He slides the clay over my cut,
pushes it into the shallow wound,
and with his other hand
he presses on my heart,
singing something low in Hebrew.
The candle goes out
in a wisp of smoke.
The shop is dark and silent.
Etan? I feel warmth return to my body.
He loosens his grip and carefully scrapes
any leftover clay back into the jar.
How do you feel?
I rub my hands together and then feel my arm
where his fingers pressed down.
The cut is gone.
I search with my fingers,
trace my skin
up and down,
back and forth.
I see a small line,
like the memory of a scratch.
Then it feels like the world
starts to spin cold and warm all at once.
My legs bend and twist.
My grandfather catches me,
sits me in a chair, gets me some water.
What’s happening? I ask.
Your body, Etan,
it’s experienced something
from another time,
an ancient thing giving its power
to something new right now.
He says this like I should understand what he means.
The world stops spinning.
I feel my feet again,
and I notice something else.
I feel good, strong,
like I could easily hit a home run
swinging with just one arm.