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terry-collettPoems
Martha had this thing about the Crucified. The image, the cross, the stretched out arms. The one in the convent school along by the chapel always caught her eye. Stood there staring. Get a move on Martha, the nun said. Don’t gape so. Or the image in the dining room stuck up on the wall above the abbess’s table. Painted on she thought. Not the same. Her mother had the one her mother gave her on her deathbed. Old wood and plaster. The plaster peeling from the hands of the Crucified. Martha gaped at Him, at His wounds, at the wound in His side where the spear went in. Forgive them for they know not. They did so, the ******** she muttered, putting her fingers on the wound in the side. She had an ebony rosary in her skirt pocket. Black Christ on the small ebony cross. She fingered in her pocket, said the prayers, felt the stiff body on the cross. Sometimes she took it out and kissed it; the ebony body, the head, the arms. Once she had a cross around her neck, silver, small, given by some old codger. She felt it warm between her small ******* Lost it when she took it off to wash and it slipped down the plughole in the convent bog. She knew her mother had this wooden crucifix on her chest of drawers. A dark wood, a fleshy plastered Christ, nails through and hands and feet. She kissed the hands when her mother was out, her lips touching the smooth plaster, the eyes closed, the feel of smoothness on flesh. Not the real Christ of course. Least not yet. She’d wait her turn. The real thing. See what death and Heaven bring.
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Nov 16, 2012
Nov 16, 2012 at 7:44 AM UTC
MARTHA'S CRUCIFIED.
Martha had this thing about the Crucified. The image, the cross, the stretched out arms. The one in the convent school along by the chapel always caught her eye. Stood there staring. Get a move on Martha, the nun said. Don’t gape so. Or the image in the dining room stuck up on the wall above the abbess’s table. Painted on she thought. Not the same. Her mother had the one her mother gave her on her deathbed. Old wood and plaster. The plaster peeling from the hands of the Crucified. Martha gaped at Him, at His wounds, at the wound in His side where the spear went in. Forgive them for they know not. They did so, the ******** she muttered, putting her fingers on the wound in the side. She had an ebony rosary in her skirt pocket. Black Christ on the small ebony cross. She fingered in her pocket, said the prayers, felt the stiff body on the cross. Sometimes she took it out and kissed it; the ebony body, the head, the arms. Once she had a cross around her neck, silver, small, given by some old codger. She felt it warm between her small ******* Lost it when she took it off to wash and it slipped down the plughole in the convent bog. She knew her mother had this wooden crucifix on her chest of drawers. A dark wood, a fleshy plastered Christ, nails through and hands and feet. She kissed the hands when her mother was out, her lips touching the smooth plaster, the eyes closed, the feel of smoothness on flesh. Not the real Christ of course. Least not yet. She’d wait her turn. The real thing. See what death and Heaven bring.
terry-collett
Written by
terry-collett
English
Nov 16, 2012
Nov 16, 2012 at 7:44 AM UTC
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