I didn't mind when she joined me
on my break at Starbucks. I'd met her
on the elevator coming and going
from an office on a floor near mine.
"I want to have a space alien's baby,"
she said. Froth from a caffe mocha
lined her lips like the milk mustache
of a little girl. I can't remember
what I said. If I said anything,
I don't think she heard, for she continued,
"I spent a night beyond the moon
one time. Aliens are wonderful lovers.
You know that old song about slow hands?
They have six of them." She stopped,
I looked aside, furtively checked my watch
preparing to mumble an excuse and flee
for the safety of my work, but something
held me. "Oh," she said. I could see
disappointment in her eyes. "You misunderstand.
It wasn't like you think. But don't ask me
to tell you more. I've hidden all that
in my heart. Talk cheapens things."

"I don't need to know," I said.
Then, without thinking, after sipping
my coffee, I added, "But there's something
other I should hear, isn't there?"
When she spoke again, her voice was changed,
softer, intense. "I was frightened," she said.
"A great light descended, enclosing me.
He was in it—such gentleness
I had never known. I yearned for him to stay.
And now he is risen from this world,
I yearn for him still. I want to give
myself again and have his child. I want
And now he is risen from this world,
I yearn for him still. I want to give
myself again and have his child. I want
to birth his tenderness in this world."

She looked long at me, said, "I'm called,"
and touched my hand. "Good God!"
I recoiled, threw back my chair, and fled.

—John Leax is professor of English and poet-in-residence at Houghton College. His book Grace Is Where I Live: The Landscape of Faith & Writing was reissued earlier this year in an expanded edition by Wordfarm.

Copyright © 2004 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine.
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