There was a time when secrets
saved me, cloaking sins in silence
I donned daily, years I spent
entombed in masqueraded
holiness, sustained in vaudeville piety,
until the day you reached for my cloak—
“Who touched me?” I screamed,
praying you were mistaken, and you
insisted, reaching again:
I stumbled forward, genuflecting—
an unintentional sacrament,
and all because you believed
I, of all people, could bring you healing.

By Heidi Turner