Pity | The Poetry Foundation

Christ bore what suffering he could and died

a young man, but you waited years to learn

how to heal. Only when you could did you

touch the man whose body blistered for yours.

You posted him no news for sixteen terms,

then just a signed graduation notice.

The letter he wrote that week asked only,

Now that your books are closed, can boys come in?

At your wedding, you buried the woman

you thought you knew inside a stranger’s name.

This is how you found yourself: thirty-three,

nursing a son. Soon there was another.

Your mind had already begun to walk.

But you were a mother. Those cribs held you.

Source: What to Eat What to Drink What to Leave for Poison (Red Hen Press, 2006)