Mary’s Blood

It was Mary’s blood made him, her blood
sieved through meaty placenta to feed him,
grow him, though Luke wrote she was no more
than the cup he was planted in, a virgin
no man ever pressed against or urged
who could barely catch eyes with the towering
angel but felt God come to her like light
through glass, like a fingerprint left on glass;
still, it’s hard to believe she never wanted
to be rid of the thing inside her, wasn’t
shamed carrying him, the child’s
perfect head pointing at the ground
and rubbing her cervix like the round earth
rubbing the thin wall of the sky that holds it.
All women reach the time of wanting it out
but not wanting it out, not knowing
what’s coming, so she must have spread
her legs in anguish because what was inside
pressing her membranes for release
was both herself and a stranger;
and she must have cried out
as the small head crowned,
splitting her, her pelvis swung
wide to push him through the wall
of this world, till what came from her
was a child lit with her own gore,
soiled, everything open so her inside
was now outside, cracked open, it means
mother to crack open, to be rent
by what comes to replace her. Such
is love—the only way. It was Mary’s
blood made him: his eyes, tongue,
his penis, her milk fattened his legs,
made hair on the crown of his head,
she grew caul to wrap him and door
to come through and nothing, not even
crying Father, Father, to the warped
blue sky can change it.

Ann Marie Macari
Mary’s Blood is reprinted from Gloryland (Alice James Books, 2005).