the sons were sent away; the daughters, shot.
Posted: October 3rd, 2006, 9:49 pm
Perhaps it was the reason she was told
she’d sinned in unwed teenage pregnancy:
her expectations paranoid were fixed
upon her first-born son whence first he cried
and death seemed all too eager to respond.
She’d rescued him when all for others failed.
She’d stolen him away from risk and brought
him home to life; and when he bled, she caught
his blood in lovely hands— and lovely wailed
when he was healed. First him; and fears abscond
in him: the scapegoat son who would have died
to save from worry all her children mixed
in life that later came: what poignancy,
to Mary’s daughters at the grave behold.
she’d sinned in unwed teenage pregnancy:
her expectations paranoid were fixed
upon her first-born son whence first he cried
and death seemed all too eager to respond.
She’d rescued him when all for others failed.
She’d stolen him away from risk and brought
him home to life; and when he bled, she caught
his blood in lovely hands— and lovely wailed
when he was healed. First him; and fears abscond
in him: the scapegoat son who would have died
to save from worry all her children mixed
in life that later came: what poignancy,
to Mary’s daughters at the grave behold.