after Charles Sprague Pearce's Sante Genevieve

Believe half at most. I don’t 
mean the miracles—take the impossible 
at its word. But beware the gentle myths. 
Men christen saints in retrospect, 
bestow halos in hindsight. 

Revision renders my youth pastoral,
unfettered, ruddy with adoration. 
But farmers’ daughters were made 
for another veil and vow, for a dress 
stained with man’s seed, leaking his fruit. 

A daughter’s cross: to bear and bear until 
she can bear no more. The Lord’s commands 
can damn a woman. Generations call me 
blessed, but the world has other names 
for girls who hear from God. 

All divine whispers yield a curse. 
Carry God’s child, and you are a whore. 
Carry no one’s child, and you are no one.
Scribes cannot taste the stale sneer’s 
venom, how it clouds holy dreams. 

So my wildest truth remains
untold—that yearning plagued me
beyond words or womb, that when I shut 
my eyes, the angel’s gaze held 
and overshadowed everything.