Laura Reece Hogan
he asks. Seems like a simple question
the man lies in a roughshod portico in Jerusalem
at the edge of the healing pool of Bethesda,
sick for thirty-eight years.
Was the inquiry ironic? Emphasis on want?
Can you blame the man for being
a little defensive, maybe you
or I also would start telling Jesus about how
we do not have,
how no one helps,
how we cannot move,
how everybody else
gets there first.
See this paralyzing
weight of flesh,
these problems,
these people,
rooting me motionless
even in the presence
of the divine cure.
But then that pointed question reduces
cuts through the noise,
brings
the excuses boomeranging home:
Do you want to be well?
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