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Carmine Giordano
On Seeing Michaelangelo’s Pieta:
Reflections of a Yiddish Grandmother
What is going on there, inside your head,
holding this outstretched maniac in your arms,
this son who has torn your heart out with his mishegas?
This lunatic who twice in front of others
denied you were his mother:
You, who pushed him out between your legs
in that cold and filthy stable with all that shmutz!
You, who had to hold him steady on the back of the mule
where you almost froze to death running to Egypt.
You, who almost died when you lost and found him
being a wise guy with the temple priests.
You, who were left to fend for yourself
while he gallivanted over Palestine
with his crew of analphabetic fishermen,
penniless cripples and prostitutes.What was going on in your mind
when he jabbered that gobbledygook talk
about being sent by his father
to pay for the sins of the world?
The father who busted his chops
to teach him a useful trade,
wondering whose son he really was?
The father who mercifully died before he could see him
butchered like a chicken on a hook?What was going on in your mind
as he gurgled delirious and naked on that cross?
This son whom you suckled in the heat of your breasts,
whose tush you wiped, whose tummy you burped?Did you want to smack him and kill him again
to ease your unbearable pain?
Did you want to die as well?Where was his head, where was his heart,
mother of sorrows,
putting our blame and laying this pain on you?
Copyright (c)Carmine Giordano, 2005. All rights reserved.
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