Will Simescu’s “Agrapha” reveals a search for holiness to readers, contrasting the gritty details of reality with imagery from the life and parables of Christ. As the word “agrapha” is Greek for “not written”, and refers to the words of Jesus not found in the Gospels, what we read in Will’s poem is a tangible quest for divine mystery and truths that are unspoken, though the search in this narrative is oftentimes fruitless.
Agrapha
I cleave the wood
and you are not there.
I lift the stone
and you are not there.
What do you mean by stone?
A dish on my coffee table
filled with polished gems.
Ancient crustaceans fossilized
on a Northern Michigan beach.
A boulder that conceals a tomb.
Sometimes, confronted
with the faces of passersby,
I am subsumed, as if lying
in a dead man’s float.
Other times I search for you
in crowded stations of the metro
and must restrain myself from shedding peals
of laughter that are unlike petals
on a wet black bough,
nor do they resemble bells.
This is me raving.
I only want to know
if there is space enough in my body
to allow a little light.
If not in my mind, perhaps
my soft hands or belly.
I would settle for a nail, even,
from my unwashed foot.
Will Simescu
Will Simescu grew up in Northern Michigan and spent six years as a language analyst in the U.S. Air Force. He currently live in Fort Collins, Colorado with his dog Lily, where he studies Restoration Ecology at Colorado State University. Will was a finalist for the Ember Chasm Review 2020 Summer Poetry Contest and a semi-finalist for Nimrod International’s 2020 Francine Ringold Awards for New Writers. His poems have also appeared in the Louisville Review, The Rupture, 45th Parallel, Poetry South, and Plainsongs Magazine, among others.