Annunciation

Well, it wasn’t
quite what I’d prayed for.
I wanted a few more months
– was I greedy, to ask for so many? –
of a girl’s freedom. Those days
before skipping gives way to weaving
playing to childbearing, planning to wishing.
Or maybe a few more weeks
when I could still leap like
a dancing salmon under the new moon,
spring up the mountain paths
with no matron skirts to weigh me down.
Or even just a few more days when I
could still dance along the borders
of my innocence, flirting with what
I didn’t quite want to know,
not yet, anyway.

And when I saw
Those cascades of angelic feathers I thought
– for just a foolish minute – that I might
indeed be bidden to go to the ball.
I rejoiced at the possibilities
magnifying before my eyes.
But the bright light somehow
erased my dreams with its dazzle.

And before I could get my head around
this – admittedly unusual – announcement
I found myself placed, gravid
on an unwanted pedestal.
Where people prayed to me
in the name of the blessing that was
the rejection of most of my prayers
the miracle that forever trapped me
within my innocence.
My soul rejoiced, dutifully.
But something in the wellspring
of my young body
felt cheated.

This is a response to Rick Mobbs’ picture above.