Mandolin strings quiver-pop,
ring sweetly from electronic speakers; sing
of sacred hearts, the pain of Mary.

Not agony of childbirth,
but anguish of childrearing,
aching love of a mother
who must stand by to witness
the destruction of her only child.

Surely, she had wished
her son would just stop,
sit down  some place beside her,
kiss her forehead the way
an adult son kisses
the forehead of his mother.

Instead, Mary would hold
the head of Jesus on her shoulder
and cradle his limp body
in her arms like a grotesquely large
and disfigured infant,

Her tears would fall, mark his flesh
mix with the filth upon his dead skin,
the blood and saliva of  Judeo-Roman
bureaucracy and intensions
both flawed and futile.

Like a nail pushed slowly
through her womb, he would leave her
hope barren, violently destroy
her motherhood. And then,

out from his dead body, six needles
like steel guitar strings stretched out,
to pierce the soul of his mother.
And only love would seep
from her wound, to sting
her insides like acid,
run through her veins
like Alabama heroin.