Kelley Lewis
new psalm for communal lament
after How to Survive a Plague
lord,
you have been called
a god of liberation,
freeing slaves
using plagues
and parting seas.
again, your people are in turmoil.
lord,
when bodies are speckled
with new leprosy,
new aches,
new bondage,
you let your people become their own saviors,
dying on old rugged crosses.
you watch their spots
turn to hospital breaths,
whispers of your name.
you claim you came
not for the strong
but the weak,
aching bodies.
you came
to heal the blind,
the leprous,
the empty souls
searching for reclamation.
but those hospital breaths
turn to black trash bags
for bodies called unholy
in your name.
lord,
people claim your will
as they call the dying sodomites
instead of victims
of their own humanity.
even the healed are
bound by past chains—
even when reclaimed.
lord,
they cry out.
if you are a god of liberation,
why are your own people
steeped in their locusts
and frogs,
waiting for you
to let your people go.
EDITOR’S NOTE: How to Survive a Plague is a 2012 documentary film about the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and the efforts of ACT UP and TAG to spur development of treatments, and combat stigma, denial, and discrimination. It was directed by David France, a journalist who covered AIDS from its beginnings.
Kelley Lewis received her Bachelor of Arts in Literature and in Creative Writing from Ohio Northern University. She is now an M. Div. candidate at The Methodist Theological School in Ohio, with a specialization in Feminist and Womanist Studies. Her work has appeared in Fearsome Critters, Penumbra, ReCap, and Polaris. An activist with multiple marginalized identities, she seeks to lift up all people through love, writing, spirituality, and service. Her cats, Moses and Snickers, keep her company—as well as her husband, Jordan.
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