PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

1

Despite the bawling of the Pharisees,
you had faith in the Lord, that He had heard
your prayers.  A pregnant Jewess, prostitute,
just fifteen years old; but still of the blood
of Israel and of their covenant
(despite self-righteous fools who like to preach
against the weaknesses of others):  you
cried from the gutter to the Lord on High.
Just moments later, help, indeed, arrived---
a Roman merchant, old and impotent,
but smitten by your plea, hot tears, and curves.
Compassionate upon your helplessness,
he took you to his home---a manor house.
And then the inevitable happened:
the spark between two personalities,
the need to be together more than not,
two hearts quickened, all senses now alert.
Swift gossip, that sworn enemy of love,
was quelled by matrimony in the name
of Roman law, in Roman records.  Hence,
you bring warmth to his gnarled limbs every night;
and he provides you sweet rest, undisturbed.
You keep him company, and you ensure
his manners during dinner parties.  He
has introduced you to new, loyal friends
(who do not take offense at what you were),
and servants sworn to care for all your needs.

2

Now clad in a fine nightgown (lavender)
from Egypt, and tan stockings (Coan silk:
sheer to the doubled weave around your toes),
shoeless upon the westward balcony,
you watch the crimson setting of the sun
without the least fear of the coming night;
or of those drunks who used to pay that pimp
for momentary pleasures thrust upon
your mouth and private places (after they
had satisfied their lust, they spit upon
your face, or struck your lips, or pushed you down
into the offal of the gutter).  That
is all behind you now.  All that is barred
from you, for it can never cross the wall
of that old Roman's---your Beloved's---love,
nor the provisions he has made for you
(both now, and future), and your child as well.
(The midwives say that you will bear a son
two months from now; but who his father was
is lost among those ghastly memories
and copper coins quickly taken from you
after they were so difficultly earned).

3

You hear that pimp is "out of business" now,
persuaded to release the other girls,
and not to bother them . . . or else.  That "else"
means risking the fierce wrath of certain men---
those whom your husband has employed to look
after his commerce (shipping goods, mined tin
from distant Britain, warehouses in Rome---
concessions that he has been given by
his old friend, called---in Rome---Augustus now).
And yet those same men, whom none dare defy,
are---in your presence---utterly transformed
to act like shy and clumsy boys, anxious
only to please the lady of the house
(yet they are, at least, more than twice your age).

4

You smile and pray about your son, who will
be snuggled in your arms not long from now.
You choose for him (if those midwives are right)
the name of Joseph, after Jacob's son---
he who kept his faith in a distant land,
and brought his family to a new refuge
after famine had swept through the region
where they sojourned as strangers.  Now you pray
that Joseph will be mighty in the Lord;
that God will have important work for him,
as He had for his namesake long ago.
You pray that he will have communion with
the Spirit that Joel once prophesied;
that Joseph will, within his lifetime, have
the vision that Isaiah wrote of, too.
All this is in your prayer; and, as Amen
emerges quietly, you feel the peace,
the warmth, and the contentment of a soul
whose words have been accepted at God's Throne---
from where He sends the earnest of comfort
to let you know that He has surely heard.