The Virgin Mary Speaks by Lucy Anderton

I warned him about those Men.
I never raised him to be King.
Only to be what was needed --
the answer to the Innkeper.

Perhaps it could've been different
but that night I was just too broken.
My legs were sweltering sacks of veins,
my bones cracked with the new kicking weight.

And that punishing ride through the mountains,
they never wrote about the open sores
on my buttocks, my screaming vagina.

And the Fear.
I stank of it.

I had seen the collapse of birthing women.
The long crushing muscles, the shriek
of ripping skin. The invisible hammering
out of a child. And, of course, the Death.

Yes. I had seen this.

The men and their fearful feet
gathering in other rooms like pigeons.
Their wives unseen and splitting air
with horror and with miracles.

Shuttered away they could hear
the blotted screams. But they didn't witness
the bloodfury in the eyes of a woman
whose body seems determined to kill her.

They didn't see her brain
whipping at logic
as it slipped
into war with sinew.

No. They just waited for the babies to come.
Or not. They hid from the Wrath
of Birth.


So it was easy for that pigskinned
Innkeeper to turn his back
on my stricken cheeks.
My trivial lips.
And my Joseph.

To see my Joseph beg.

My poor confused Josef. Trying
so hard not to panic. See,
I had told him the stories back
when we were sure we'd have hot water.

That night he could taste the Losing of me.

That Innkeeper jerked his careless finger
in front of Joseph's honest nose.
Don't let that Book tell you otherwise!
There was no gracious offer of a stable,

just a slammed dusty door as he munched
back to his dinner, his desperate wife.

Josef saw the blood from the lip I was biting,
dragged our tottering mule to that little
dank stable, hauled me down like sack,

and hid me
behind the sheep
and the cows.

And as I stared at their innocent
udders, their shitcaked hocks,
the world exploded.

My mouth stuffed with straw.

Even then, I knew
he was only mine
for those moments
in the starlight.

And those Men came. Knocking over me
with their knees and swiveling eyes.
Kicking aside my blood, stinking
of camel, myrrh and pride.

The Innkeeper, swaggering about
in his new celebrity. Claiming
his place in the birth
of "God's son."

They wrote down those stories.
But they didn't ask me anything.
I was just another female
etching for them to paint in.

So is it any wonder
that I stand here
grey and stiff.
My face placid.
My arms stuck open
like forgotten wings.

They have made me a stony bird.

You look to me
with your weepings,
your begging questions,
willing me to cry
one more tear
so you can shout "Miracle!"
and stifle me with your breath
and with your fingers.

But I have cried enough.
And the only movement
you will see is the final
cracking open of these
plaster lips

and whilst you wait
for a zoo of blessings
I will cheat you.
I will tell you the truth.
I will say to you

"He was my son!"