by Carole Devine

Created on: January 22, 2010

Weep With Us

On dusty hot summer Saturdays

we would walk to St. Peter’s,

dipping our fingers in the font as we entered.

Rushed signs of the cross

as we made our way to the first pew ,

in front of the statue of Mary.

Our knees would stick to the bench as we knelt before her

Waiting for a sign.

We had heard she cried tears of blood in a small church in Portugal.

We weren’t hoping for that much:

just something to indicate she heard our prayers, knew we were there.

We’d watch her painted eyes for the slightest movement.

Once, my brother said he saw the rosary beads draped over her arm move.

I never saw it but I wanted to believe.

Was she there, inside that cast of clay

struggling to communicate, to let us know we weren’t alone?

Did she weep inside her plaster confines as my brother knelt next to me, praying to be rid of his Unnatural Desires?

Did she shudder as the priest behind her preached of sin and repentance and of Choice

while the vampires among him sucked the innocence out of schoolboys

and the cardinals turned their heads away from the Unpleasantness?

Rendered mute inside this shell, she had let them speak for her:

She had no choice in this patriarchal world.

They say they spoke for him too

though they’d long since forgotten, or seemed to have forgotten, what he’d preached

preferring instead the certainty of the Old Testament,

the surety of righteousness,

the severity of punishment for Sinners.

Exclusion, delusion,

shaming young men and women for feelings they did not choose

while clandestine deals were being brokered in oak paneled, velvet curtained rooms.

Hush money and reassignments in return for silence, forgiveness, amnesia.

I don’t remember what I’d pray for when I’d look at her.

I just remember watching and waiting

until one of us would look at a watch or hear the creak of a floorboard behind us

to let us know it was time to go.

We’d get up slowly, knees cracking

Both of us looking back at her as we’d stand and walk towards the aisle,

Still hoping for a sign.

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