Our Lady of Sorrows
Mission Dolores Museum, San Francisco
A crepe mourning gown
and weeping veil of lace
both cloak me, crown to feet,
lay weightless as feathers
over arms I pray will lift me,
free me from this glass case
where you behold the anguish
in my upturned face, wide eyes
that plead, lips that whisper
faint prayers for thousands
buried on the mission grounds.
Padres, soldiers, the neophyte
Indios, all seeded Mother
Church. Hands I’ve wrung
till swollen clutch a rosary
of soapberry seeds, blackened
globes that mirror the world we
share. Panes preserving me
reflect your downcast face, pale
as incense. Woe will hold you
briefly, I cannot escape my own.
Marilyn Westfall has published poetry most recently in Unknotting The Line: The Poetry in Prose, through Dos Gatos Press. She wanders between Lubbock and Alpine Texas.
Amethyst Review 