Matthew E Henry

THE PROPHET CONFRONTS HIS ATTACKER

O Lord, Thou hast seduced me and I was deceived . . . ~ Jeremiah 20:7

Say You lured me into Your windowless,

white van with promises of candy, but

placed something more sinister in my mouth.

You held me down and forced Your will inside

You’re always with me: above my bed,

between my eyes, bound to my hand. Yo1r face

is written on every open door.

in my dreams i hear Your voice like angels

fallen to my shoulder and i beg peace

violence screams within me—a fiery

foreign tongue i can never silence: an

encased burning i can never escape.

haunted, i wrestle to forget Your touch.

how Your seed grew where no one else could see.

Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the author of full-length collections the Colored page (Sundress Publications, 2022) and The Third Renunciation (NYQ Books, 2023), as well as the chapbooks Teaching While Black (Main Street Rag, 2020), Dust & Ashes (Californios Press, 2020), and have you heard the one about…? (Ghost City Press, 2023). He also has a collection forthcoming from Harbor Editions. He is editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal and an associate poetry editor at Pidgeonholes. MEH’s poetry appears or is forthcoming in Cola, The Florida Review, Massachusetts Review, Ninth Letter, Pangyrus, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, and The Worcester Review among others. The 2023 winner of the Solstice Literary Magazine Stephen Dunn Prize, MEH is an educator who received his MFA yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education... Full Profile