Verse by Moses Roth Page B

hands on the sill for support and look out at the crowd surrounding the hospital.
    She says, “I don’t understand why all these people believe in you just because of what happened.”
    I say, “These people see signs from God in toaster burns on sandwiches. Somebody who’s survived death twice, who’s on television saying he’s the messiah and gets killed and resuscitated—”
    “You mean resurrected.”
    I say, “Exactly. A sign from God.”
    The crowd is milling around, holding signs with my name. Some are in circles praying.
    I say, “Maybe I’m still dead. Maybe this is heaven. Everything I wanted is happening. People are paying attention to me. People believe in me.”
    She comes to stand beside me and look out the window.
    I look at her.
    She’s not looking at me as she says, “Is that all you wanted?”
    “What do you mean?” My heart monitor beeps faster and I glance at it and back at her and she’s smiling at me and I smile and she leans forward and kisses me.
    I pull back in surprise, but then I lean forward to kiss her, but she’s opened her mouth and I sort of miss her lips and I pull back and she laughs and I do too and then we both lean in and kiss for real. I put a hand on her cheek and the other behind her head and we’re still kissing and she rubs my arm and I stroke her hair and it’s great.
    We separate and I look at her and she’s looking at me.
    I’m weary, so I walk back to my bed and sit on the edge. I push the button for more morphine. Iris turns to face me and glances down at my chest.
    Is that what it feels like for girls? I laugh.
    Iris says, “What?”
    “Nothing. Now I’m sure it’s heaven.”
    She smiles.
    I cough and I keep coughing, can’t stop.
    It finally subsides and I look at her and she’s so concerned. I’m all right, I want to say, but I don’t.
    She says, “Are you okay? Do you need a glass of water?”
    I say, “Thanks.”
    She goes to the bathroom and brings back a wax paper Dixie cup of water and hands it to me. I sip it and she sits down next to me. I set it down on the bedside table and look at her.
    She says, “Manuel, I need to tell you, when I saw you fall, when I thought you had died, I can’t tell you what it was like. Everyone was running around, pushing and shoving and yelling, but I got up onto the stage. And you were bleeding and not breathing. And I thought you were gone forever. No, I knew you were gone forever. I knew it. But when I saw you get hit, before I got to the stage, when I saw you fall, the first thing I thought was that I love you.”
    “Iris, I…” I can’t say it, can I? “You know I love you too. I think you’re the only person I’ve ever loved in my entire life. And if you mean it, you’re the only person who’s ever loved me. I mean, you’re the only person who knows who I really am and loves me.”
    She nods.
    “But…” The world is tunneling in on me. “When I told you I loved you that day on the field, I had turned my back on who I am. And before I died I wanted to be your boyfriend or lover or even your husband.” My ears are hot. “But I am the messiah. That’s all I can be. And that means I can’t be with you.”
    “But what changed? It’s like you said, you were resuscitated, not resurrected. You said you weren’t the messiah before, Erwin told me.”
    “I said that because I found out that I was conceived through artificially insemination. I used to think I was divinely conceived, but I have father, a human father.”
    “Yeah of course you do.”
    “But now I realize that doesn’t matter.”
    “You’re right, it doesn’t matter.”
    “I mean, God was working through those means. He conceived me and he resurrected me. It was his will.”
    “But listen to what you’re saying. It was artificial insemination, you were resurrected by a machine. Who knows, maybe one day people will invent a machine as powerful as God. None of these things are God, they’re just people and technology. So