Lit up Like Poetry
A poem by Julia R. DeStefano
Lit up Like Poetry
There’s an interesting belief that circulates:
that if we stare at someone long enough,
their aura will reveal itself.
Like a parlor trick out of Witch City.
Designed to get a rise out of an unsuspecting audience
for a high cover charge.
My friend *David and I are talking on the phone.
Arguing about auras like annoying siblings.
He’s trying to get me to buy-in to the invisible energy field.
Ever-changing with our emotional states.
I say: “Isn’t that like intuition without the pretty colors?”
the way a sister might take a jab at her brother.
I swear I hear him shrug over the line.
Fast-losing patience with my ignorance.
He swears he can read my aura.
I figure there’s no harm in letting him have this victory,
though my mind flashes to a saying we have in my family:
“God might have to drop a brick on your head
to finally get your attention.”
Because when I saw that silvery white aura,
it occurred to me that I might be experiencing another brick.
Strong, healing, a nurturer of someone in quiet pain.
A nurturer of me
in my urgency to drink the words from his lips.
Breathe his name like an incantation,
and call it the finest of verse.
It spooked me to see this ring of light.
Until I remembered what David had said about my man
having his own magic that comes out with me.
“All things have energy,” he told me.
But what he was really saying was:
if you ever let yourself truly relax into him,
you will see -
his face will seem ageless.
He’ll be lit up like poetry.
© Julia R. DeStefano
*Name has been changed
