The woman speaks to the man that employed her son by lorna goodison

The Woman Speaks to the Man who has Employed her Son  

Lorna Goodison  

Her son was first made known to her  

as a sense of unease, a need to cry  

for little reasons and a metallic tide  

rising in her mouth each morning.  

Such signs made her know  

That she was not alone in her body.  

She carried him full term  

tight up under her heart.  

She carried him like the poor  

carry hope, hope you get a break  

or a visa, hope one child go through  

and remember you. He had no father.  

The man she made him with had more  

like him, he was fair-minded  

he treated all his children  

with equal and unbiased indifference.  

She raise him twice, once as mother  

Then as father, set no ceiling  

On what he could be doctor,  

earth healer, pilot take wings.  

But now he tells her he is working  

for you, that you value him so much  

you give him one whole submachine  

gun for him alone.  

He says you are like a father to him  

she is wondering what kind of father  

would give a son hot and exploding  

death, when he asks him for bread.  

She went downtown and bought three  

and one-third yards of black cloth  

and a deep crowned and veiled hat  

for the day he draw his bloody salary.  

She has no power over you and this  

at the level of earth, what she has  

are prayers and a mother’s tears  

and at knee city she uses them.  

She says psalms for him  

she reads psalms for you  

she weeps for his soul  

her eyewater covers you.  

She is throwing a partner  

with Judas Iscariot’s mother  

the thief on the left-hand side  

of the cross, his mother  

is the banker, her draw though  

is first and last for she still  

throwing two hands as mother and  

father.  

She is prepared, she is done. Absalom.

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