bethany f. brengan

Bethany F. Brengan is a freelance writer and editor who splits her time between the Olympic Peninsula and the internet. Her poetry has appeared in The Gordon Square Review, The 2015 Poet’s Market, Flying Island, and CV2: The Canadian Journal of Poetry and Critical Writing.  She can be found at www.brenganedits.com and https://medium.com/essays-no-one-asked-for.

Invitations

“Who do you say that I am?”

“Why are you so afraid?”

“Who touched me?”

Even Christ, who knew

men’s hearts as intimately 

as he knew the throat-tickle of sawdust

and the slop of Jordan River mud, has a red-letter

dialogue full of question marks.

One hundred and thirty-five

of them. 

“What do you want me to do for you?”

he asks, as though two blind

men calling his name from the side

of the road might just be curious

about the time of day. But he asks.

To ask

is to wait, to put the things

you wanted to say

back in your pocket,

and open your hands

to receive the frightening

gift of someone else’s story. 

For those of us

who hardly understand our own

thumping flesh, to ask is to admit

ignorance, to say,

“I am also here

to learn; will you teach me

the thrumming valves

and tunnels

of your needs?”

To ask is not to push, but to open a door 

and leave it swinging suggestively:

a creak of hinges, whispering

across a square of light,

“Why not? Why not?”

Read more of Bethany’s work in Solum Journal Volume I and Solum Journal Volume IV.

Listen to our interview with Bethany on Solum Podcast.