I had no desire to get to know the screamers,
our loud-in-ten-ways, annoying, drunk and boorish
neighbors, but I didn’t put up
a fence or anything. Didn’t fight it
when they brought us plates of their fatty meals
and overlong chitchat. We were new,
just renting, and I didn’t want to be rude,
either, when Joanna and Vince
brought us their statue of the Virgin Mary
when our newborn son was in the hospital.
Joanna had tears in her eyes and though I am not
Catholic, or even Christian—or not
anymore anyway, I think, if it’s like what I suppose
in that you have to keep up with the dues
to stay in the club—
I accepted the statue. I took in the alien
mother and wrapped her in a blanket.
I lay her on a low shelf and broke
the news to my Jewish husband, who cringed
and said, “She gave you what?”
But I didn’t care
what it was, from what god or goddess
or neighbor or creature or kiln.
I was becoming someone I didn’t know
each day without my little boy—near insanity
about his tiny, pure, hurt self. All those wires.
Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God,
Holy Statue in my baby’s silent room, I promise
I will believe in you, and in Jesus too. Please…
Why was I cradling a “mother” statue,
a ceramic doll, this creepy relic,
instead of my living, beautiful son?
If she could make it all the way here,
across so many territories of indifference,
into my most secret empty room—
surely my child, who belonged, would come home soon?