Madonna of Mariupol, Ukraine
  after a photograph of an unnamed, pregnant Ukrainian woman
  being carried from a maternity hospital bombed by Russian invaders
                                                                      14 March 2022
 
Little mother-to-be,
tawny hair pulled back
from the pallid moon
of your face,
eyes already fixed on
something beyond
the picture’s shelled periphery,
 
how is it you came to be
hoisted into history by men
who doubtless failed
to notice the frightful
symphony of scarlets
 
—unlikely cheer
of wedged watermelon blanket,
deadly bloom between
your shattered thighs--
 
a ransom of blood
and water spilled
from the lanced side
of a dying king
or amnion’s burst bubble
being the currency
of paradise,
 
and in the meanwhile
we are left
to bend beneath the weight
of our dreary denouement--
tree carved into a cross
beam, tree that glints
gunmetal.
 
O god I no longer believe
in, tell me, how is it
you declared this cold
banishment