Must I be a handmaiden,
the way your Mother was
a page blank as obedience,
on whom you will enact,
with my every breath,
your word to be kept ?Or must I take on
your crown of thorns,
your wounds in my side,
bearing the world in lines
that shiver like arms
racked across the sky ?Published in I Watch the Stars Go Out (1999)
Last Modified: 20 March, 2002