-—They brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, placed her in their
-—midst, and said to him, “Teacher, in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone
-—such women. What do you say?” …
-—Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
What he made of dust
became me.
I knew no difference.
All I’d believed
gathered
into weight.
Once, it seems,
I held a stone.
Then I fell away.
William Coleman has served as managing editor of Image and executive editor of nonfiction for DoubleTake. A former teaching fellow at Harvard, he is cofounder of the Star-Splitter Academy. His poems have been published in Poetry and Paris Review.