After the Sermon I Wanted Leprosy
by Brock William Storey
Then no one would touch me but God.
The next time my babysitter’s husband lifted the blanket—
Scales. Scabs. In splotches my skin glistered red.
White hair grown around sunken sections of my chest
like a ram’s horn hung from a sentry’s neck, a lookout tower
armed with archers, a hundred Davids slingshotting stones.
I prayed: Unto me God give the grace of pain.
Destroy my body or make it a map of his uncleanliness. Amen.
A month later my brother contracted hand, foot, and mouth.
These are the mysterious ways.
When my mother went to bed I’d sneak into his room
and lean into his crib to kiss his blistered lips.
The sheets damp beneath him as if he leaked shadow,
sweated out a second self. I waited a week.
On the seventh day I checked in the mirror,
expected blotches to dapple my back,
cindered circles to trail down my thigh—
for a glimpse of a crusted limb. Nothing.
Grace is not contagious. We’re given what we’re given.
And every few weeks I received a grown man.
Half asleep on his couch as he ran his tongue
along my stomach, I did not cry. I was a good boy.
A lamp flickered on the table like a body
twitching, silent as the night hardened overhead.