Agnus Dei, Magdalena Montagne, June 10, 2011

Agnus Dei

My mother taught me fear
which began on Sundays, the first day, in the Church.
Agnus Dei, Lamb of God.
A forbidding Father we could never lose.
No place unseen. Unheard.
Still as tears after falling.
Agnus Dei, she would implore.
Take away all sin.

But worse than sin,
there were bridges
and cars and trains.
Escalators and elevators
that could take her children
all the way to the top
of the Empire State Building.
Trolley cars in San Francisco
Buses out of Newark, New Jersey
Subways under Manhattan.

But worse than bridges,
there were boys.
Boys who would become men.
Boys like our father,
who would grow to despoil us.
Agnus Dei, she would mutter
as she saw our own father
enter my sister’s room nightly.

And I,
left to consider fragments of Italian stardust
found relief
from swelter of heat
and passion
the godliness of chaos
a disordered universe
I stretched to see
the cold night sky
from my window
wild, inexplicable.
Both darkened by night
and illuminated.