You gaze at me from a frame on the dresser

 

You’ve struck a pose on a Depression era Ford.
One defiant hand on your defiant, glamorous hip,
the other gracing your bare leg,
stiletto heels of your pumps

pushing on the grill of the car,
black in this black and white photo.
A rusted tin roof in the background.
Probably a chicken coop.

Single mother-to-be, is my father nestled in your womb? Who
put him there? Were you free
to say yes? To say no?

An anti-choice politician
said without babies
from rape, babies from incest—
many of us wouldn’t be here.

I wish we were alive
at the same time, wish
our family spoke more
of the dead. I shift my gaze

from photo to mirror,
where I see
your deep-set eyes,
the same

high forehead,
nose,
lips.
Our defiance.

---

 

The Real Miracle

I’ll tell you what really happened.
It was not a Holy Spirit—
it was my father, not in heaven,
but the head of my house, my Av,

who walked the world robed
in false piety, in undue respect.
Like many priests
who now call me Blessed.

When my monthly bleeding stopped,
no longer staining my clothes scarlet—
Ima noticed, suspecting my betrothed.
And when I said the truth

she had not seen, Av’s duplicity,
we both feared the life and death
growing inside me. She beseeched
my betrothed to rescue me from

what she could not, for his love
to save me from stoning. And she said the story
is this—she is the Virgin

Mary, handmaid of the Lord,
mother of Jesus,
wife of Joseph—
or she is dead.

 

 

Contributor Bio:

Kashelle Lockman has emerged from her molecular biologist, palliative care pharmacist, and wife eras to her writing era. Like motherhood and biking, she hopes it never ends. Period. She is a member of the Trailhead Poets and Iowa City’s Porchlight Literary Arts Center. Kashelle lives in Iowa City, Iowa, with the best gray cat and an incredible painting of a goat.