The Birth of Evangelism

by William Coleman

Steady heat, dough rising, your eyes

opening, it’s easy to believe

in a more peaceful Pentecost—

no torrent of flame burning

vision through skin, but a warming

of the flesh, simmering to the touch,

famished tongues waking slowly for a feast.

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William Coleman is a high school English teacher in a public school in New Hampshire. His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, Western Humanities Review, and other publications. He is the co-founder of The Star-Splitter Academy, the former managing editor of Image, and the former executive editor of nonfiction of DoubleTake Magazine.