'The Vergin Mary'
My mother was the Virgin Mary.
In her blue and distant gaze
Worlds disbanded,
Infancy became sweeter.
Jesus’s mother, and yet also the mother
Of this dark, skinny Magdalene,
Who would secretly take her silk nightgowns
From that rose-scented chester-drawer.
Minute, soft and candid,
Utterly scaring, the tiny Virgin Mary
Kept, at a road-junction,
Among the dark-green leaves of a little niche,
Was made of stone.
Voluptuous and smooth,
in her cold shade of marble,
she suffered no remorse.
Erminia Passannanti, 1999.
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