Sweet Martha, if you’re there,
tell me your name.
Not the one we gave you,
but the one that calls you home.
But what is home to you? You never witnessed
the hills and oaks of ancestral migration.
Mother and Father, that was all you knew;
simple love and life, it was enough for you.
You never knew why you were taken from home,
why man’s grief fed you, shame had bathed you,
why you were whored out in the open for
the eyes of predators to rake down your body.
Your womb, like Sweet Mary, was the only hope
for the forgiveness of man’s sins,
your dignity to soothe man’s guilt,
your fertility to bring salvation.
Body and blood, fixed and drained;
Sweet Martyr, you were crucified for our sins.
Bread and wine, broken and spilled;
Sweet Martyr, you’re a whore forever.
But you were just a creature of God.
A daughter, not Son.
A child, not Mother.
So, like all creatures of God, our Father,
you were freed in His mercy
and your heart found peace.
And you were just a little girl,
so we molested your body.
Look how tenderly we broke your bones,
spread open the slit, fingered your organs.
Men have always been curious about girls’ bodies—
discard the carcass, the unpleasant, unpretty.
And you were once someone’s daughter,
your mother’s eyes, your father’s colours.
Now glass, like tears, rolls in your sockets,
skin pulled taut over foam and wire.
Men have always been philosophers on dead bodies—
power over death, resurrection, how selfish.
You were lonely before, now you’re truly alone.
The hills and oaks are a burial site;
it has a space for a daughter, they’re waiting for you;
it’s a hole that you will never fill.
Sweet Martyr, you will never fly again,
your body weighed down by man’s sins,
but, in your dreams, the sun calls your name,
its warmth, no man can take from you.
To dust, Sweet Martha, is where we return.
So, fly, Sweet Martyr, with wings nailed down,
and there, Sweet Mary, you will find your name
in the dust, sweet creature, lost by us.
