mother mary
she wakes up and pees under the cover of darkness,
rubbing swollen eyes and feeling her belly.
how is it that nothing has changed here, except
for the memory of the light and the strength of
the angel overcoming her,
possessing her for that brief moment.
she cries softly in the dawn.
how can this be understood or even believed,
she knows how the neighbors will shake their heads
and count the months on their fingers,
how he will never look at the child,
except out of distrust and fear.
and she will carry this child to his grave, and
he will be more than she was and she will cry
over god’s cruelty in making him and taking him.
and she will cry over how no man will compare
to that split second in the flash of light, how
no other child will fill her belly with the same weight.
she will be elevated to perfection in memory, in posterity,
but it will not be true.
she spread her legs willingly, wantonly for that angel, for god,
she allowed herself to be taken, overcome.
she coveted it, later, above her own husband. she knew,
she believed, she was chosen.
and she laughed, loud, for those that spit and cursed
and then looked away, afraid of seeing.
like other women, she bleeds each month that he does not
come to her, and she cries for it.
but she holds her child and lets him believe
in the perfection she has created him to be.
