Jacob’s Limp

Who wouldn’t have a bad hip on his way across the river

Jabbok. Eleven children, two wives, your fourteen years

behind you with an uncle who lied. But this angel is no

fib. When it turns toward the sun, it seems a woman,

an erotic hand on your waist, burning, slipping down,

or it’s a masculine grip on your hip bone like a prophecy

that must, absolutely must be fulfilled. And now such

hair that you tear away in your fist, such tangible light,

an angel scalp the brightness of sunrise, turning red with

this struggle. Years of walking slantwise, of forgetting

mother’s schemes, father’s blindness, what can an even

gait achieve that your swap of lentils for a brother’s

birthright did without effort? Instinct just a red-furred

body trying to make more of itself, your hope that two

people, his and yours, forgive, embrace. You almost hear

an angel’s voice. Maybe God’s. Or it’s Esau weeping.