Laura Sweeney
What Didn't Work
(Carbondale, IL, July 30, 2018)
Zearing’s fireworks…Younger friends who don’t get it yet…Extraction of a wisdom tooth…Watermelon flavored gum…Vitamins from the Co-op…UV rays…Try succulents (cactus juice?) someone suggested…Spinach & banana & mango & pineapple smoothies…Reliv soy shakes…Questioning what did I start out loving?…Pilates…Ordering takeout…Not giving a flying eff…Mom’s iced ginger peach tea…Lemon ginger dark chocolate…Keeping a diary…Joining the gym…Ivory soap for sensitive skin…Honey chews by the bag…Green tea…Fasting…Energizing Concentrate from Merle Norman…The DASH diet…Chlorine…The Butterfly Garden…Another anniversary another accident.
At the St. Louis Art Museum I Encounter the Painting
Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery
The Beckmann stuns me, his caricature of Christ
in the midst of a crowd, one hand stops the stoning
of a woman on her knees praying while grabbing
His robe. As He reaches for her, a man behind
points and sneers, others make fists. The colors
purple blue green orange, vulgar as the scene
in church last spring, a single mother shunned
as she cowered next to me in the back pew.
While I threaded the needle she was using
to sew a strap on her newborn’s pacifier,
she handed me her phone number, the others
jeering you lie you lie about her story.
In the final weeks of her pregnancy she lived
with the pastor and his wife, tried to help
with gas and groceries, but when she
almost died in delivery, they tried to take
her baby. And when she was discharged,
they sent social services to document
that she was an unfit mother. DSS found
nothing alarming, nothing out of the ordinary
to warrant taking her baby or prove that
she was a wayward woman. And I couldn’t help
thinking about the men of the church, how
they fawned over me, though I was only
a guest that spring. They had no inkling about
my past. By what assumptions did they perceive
I was more sin free? And I couldn’t help
thinking, today her, tomorrow me, their spirit
of condemnation. And I couldn’t help wondering
why the church wasn’t doing all it could to help
this mother get back on her feet? And what about
their mistakes, addictions, exploits, indiscretions?
What could I hand her but a tissue as she sobbed,
That’s not Jesus. And think about the guy, why
he’s off the hook while she’s the target,
the identified problem. Where are his hands
as she bears the brunt of shaming?
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