*In This One, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford Never Saw Her Assailant Be Appointed Supreme Court Justice

In This One, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford Never Saw Her Assailant Be Appointed Supreme Court Justice 

Bethesda took its name from a pool in Jerusalem:

cool, dull water, smooth in the silence of dry dust

in the nighttime. In the Muslim quarter of the city,

men bathed, once, the slickness damp against their skin.

The Gospel of John said an angel swam, troubling the waters

but when the angel came up for air, its wings were wet

and flightless as it thrashed for freedom from the grasp

of the water, so dark and so deep. So, Bethesda:

glittering with Catholic schools and copper pennies

stomped into the pavement of suburban sidewalks,

American as much as it is holy. In Bethesda,

Catholic school boys drank cases of beer, swam

in chlorinated pools at their parents’ houses, smelled

of stale yeast, alcohol, and sunscreen in the summer.

Boys, who shouted lyrics to Don’t You Want Me, Baby?

on the boombox, in the nighttime. It was 1982 when

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh,

on a night like this, and there were no angels in the pool

drowning like she was, under the weight of his body with a hand

clamped over her mouth, feeling all possibility sink around her.

But in this one, in Bethesda, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford

never saw her assailant be appointed Supreme Court Justice,

thirty six years later. In Bethesda, boys became men who became

important politicians. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford became a victim;

except, in this one, she didn’t have to. She didn’t have to stand crucified

in testimony like a martyr ready for the killing: in oath, in trauma

mass-televised, feeling all possibility sink around her.

She wouldn’t feel the Senate holding their breath in with every

word, like they were underwater, small bubbles of air escaping

between thin lips. In this one, after Bethesda, she would be believed

instead of thrashing for freedom, for something like hope. Maybe,

Brett Kavanaugh would be crucified for his actions, and boys

who would become men would be held responsible, no matter

how important they became. In Bethesda, this troubling would be

his own, much how the troubling of the pool in Jerusalem was the fault

of the angel: stirring the waters, so dark and so deep, into demise.