Lady of sorrows
we both see the heart in the eye of the tempest

three swords piercing yes, she says, mater dolorosa

our lady of sorrows
later on the beach, land

birds pose on the sand, wagtail says what are you

going to do about it, wrens pop out of rose geraniums, butterflies

prance in couplet over dune vegetation before their eternal

separation by heavy breathing winds, imagine all the salt and water

of human tears, anguish roaring up into this wind, gulls spring out

of the way, like marionettes, in distaste
in Zagreb in a tiny alcove off a laneway

women bring their salted lives

into a cavern made hotter with hundreds of fluttering

candles, melted wax shovelled off stone floors like warm

cheese, prayers vie with smoke, stone worn into

knee-shaped hollows
bodies glyph their shameless revelation, this is how

generations creep from hope to

hope, through wars, dictatorship, the ripping of one’s

only blanket out of empty hands, the numberless lost
effort of walking here, waiting to enter the flow

of a mercy, to kneel where others might

have received touch, this place like the

womb of the sterile mother, understanding

between women who carry bent bodies onward

into a time where meaning gifts life with life
second coming’s a context of  moving faceless

black without pause