456 - Lourdes

Lourdes
By Elizabeth Creamer

Imagine a girl looking for her mother,
the mother she cannot find in her father's house
where the table of hungry brothers like open-mouthed birds
is a board to beat her back if she asks for more
than the woman hoarding the empty cupboards can bear
hearing. There is no wine left to sooth the cutting
teeth of her first born, only daughter, no milk in the dead
breasts which are scarred by the fall into a candle
she lit to sew a plain baptismal gown, some thin, white length
of dream. Her hands spill exhaustion like flour;
she drops, her heart bursting into flame, burning dry
as day-old bread, or the poverty of tears she does not shed
finding a woman to nurse the baby with wet grief
for a lost son that the girl will never resemble.
With weaning, more violence-take this in memory of him.
Her own mother, now a distant dark brush of skirt-
an absence flat as a grave.

Imagine a girl looking for her mother,
the mother she cannot find in her Father's house
where the priest slams the book, shuts her out another May.
Asthmatic, the girl chokes on her catechism, unschooled,
she forgets the words of prayers foreign to her as love.
Like the price of a lace veil, there will be no First Communion.
The girl turns from the rail then, the priest
and his ring of acolytes like pocket mirrors facing the sun,
every cold-scrubbed face a reflection of his childhood,
lived pure as a boy can be. He loves to hear them sing
the Latin, voices clear as water, fingernails scoured
for daily inspection. Winters, she breaks her fist
through dirty ice, splashes forehead and cheeks,
never bathing, never learning, her own mother tongue
a sharp pebble in her mouth. Months of disciplined slaps
and she remembers only the sole response, kneels to whisper,
Lord, I am not worthy to receive.

Imagine a girl finding the Mother whose arms are so wide
they embrace every brother and herself. Imagine her nestling

Elizabeth Creamer is an adjunct instructor of English at Paul D. Camp Community College in Suffolk, Virginia. Her poetry and short stories appear in such journals as Kenyon Review, Midwest Poetry Review, and The Rectangle.

457 - Lourdes

against a breast so soft it is a white cotton baptism
with a living pulse underneath strong as flame to fight fire.
Imagine a winter's bath without shivering, a workman's cupboard
unlocked, and his table set with bread and milk poured
like warm spring rain. Imagine a housewife, her skin
unscarred, and her fatigue no more than a small candle,
snuffed, after-dinner, with an easy exhalation.
Imagine love without words, a Mass sung in a common language,
and a communion rail so long it pushes past the heavy doors
flung back to the walls and forgotten, like vestigial organs,
unneeded. Imagine breathing, outside, without constriction,
no tearing from the incense, and eyes open to the sun
light which does not burn. Imagine Mary, her hands
feathering the chalice, and the rising moons of her nails
so nacreous, they are, like her,

an immaculate conception.