K Michau 2

The Judgment of Mary

Today Mary floats under a Summer tree,
her green eyes wide engaging what they see:
us on our knees looking up at her saintly face
awaiting her doubtful ascension into grace.

Her story begins in Plymouth with two years gone
on a glowing Summer day much like this one
when her father, his business there being done,
decides to return without her to distant London.

And within the brief span of a single season
she, ripened and naive at twenty one,
takes up with a married man by the name of Mitton
who begins with her the dark solicitation

of her young chastity. She hesitates
but still in time delivers his desires.
Perceiving her sins, after another season
she bids him a pained farewell and flees to Boston.

Once settled there she settles some in her heart
but shortly thereafter her worst fear is confirmed:
"Mister Mitton, you wretch, you left me pregnant.
Oh if the word circulates I will be doomed."

Unable to accept her vile aspect
Mary naively undertakes to hide
the truth behind actions oh so modest
that none would dare suspect she is with child.

And then that fated night in the dead of winter,
I recall it was the thirteenth of December,
she lay alone in pain in a back room
and sees the healthy child come from her womb.

Knowing what must be done I'm sure she cried
as she prayed for its death by kneeling on its head.
Thinking the business done she lays it by
but later that morning startles at its cry

so takes an iron poker to its head,
bashing at the child until it is dead,
lays it in a chest, an improper tomb,
and then goes up to bed in her well kept room.

Not long after she moves away with speed
hoping to leave behind her this foul deed.
But soon she is found by a suspicious woman
who demands of her an examination.

The woman finds that she was brought to birth,
and, thus pressed, Mary confesses the truth.
Before the jury they caused her to touch the face of it
whereupon the blood came fresh into it.

Mary was sentenced to hang in a public place
so now from a Summer tree she hangs a space.
While floating, she asks, "What do you mean to do?"
So the knot is turned and the sky in her face turns blue.