Monday, July 22, 2019

St. Agatha Waits for Peter


The National Gallery, Edinburgh, 2015

It’s true. I did not need 
them, the mounds of flesh 
where my children should have 
fed, their milkteeth nibbling 
cracked skin, suckling little drops of 
blood with every gulp of milk. 
Still, as I lie bleeding, 
my breasts carried away in a bowl 
(perhaps given to a hungry dog)
I want them back. I send a prayer 
like a stumbling child to heaven. 
I wait in the blooming red.

           ©️  Ellie White, 2016

(First published by |tap| magazine, 2016)

The martyrdom of St. Agatha
by a follower of C. Welcome
from Wikimedia Commons



No comments: