An Unsettling Kind of Love

He is His Holiness the Pope, stopped in time,
his hands cupping the head of an Italian
man, deformed, an elephant man.

We all saw it on TV. He touched him.

Behind the bulbous forehead, a man is there;
he came for benediction—an otherworldly man
who knows the touch of those aging hands
represent millions of others who accept him.

With one touch, the poverty of his heart
was replaced, live and in Technicolor,
with an abundance he had never known,
releasing a crushing burden, unturning
the squeezing mouth of a devouring vice,
revealing a man
untainted,
his heart stripped bare in front of the world,
shaking and dizzy, willingly weeping, “I belong.”

An intimacy unimaginable, a tender melting
moment, a touch, a kiss, morphing into purity,
the soft dripping of tears,
tears from one who was never touched,
and one who was deeply touched
seeing the image of Christ in his eyes.

This unhidden intimacy, broadcast everywhere,
confuses the lost
—so unsettling to witness love like this—
it threatens everything they know.