Echoes rebound off the bedroom walls
   as she screams in pleasure to a deity
   that better hears whispered prayers.

   Violin Concerto in F Minor, Vivaldi
   is the soundtrack when seed and egg
   meet in her and make our child.

   Love bleeds all over feuding families
   as guns like thunder roar through the
   night delivering the required martyrs.

   The dead are mourned with a dirge of
   voices echoing off the hills and the
   building threat of vengeance. Storms.

   Anger thrums just out of hearing,
   just out of sight as our child is
   born into this unwelcome cauldron.

   This night defines me. Unbridled joy.
   Hope for our familial peace. Not to be.
   Our child loses her mother to violence.

   Echoes rebound off the bedroom walls
   as she screams in hunger to a mother
   who better hears whispered prayers.