[Each year she sits costumed in violent white]

Each year she sits costumed in violent white
patent leather shoes, a starched dress so pastel pastel.
Of the yearly pageant she knows a good man died
on two pieces of wood & the good man came back to life
to save the very same folks who wished him dead.
She lives in a world full of folk & doubts
they’re all redeemable, so she’s in it for the eggs
on the kitchen table with baskets of straw, fake green grass,
gardens of marshmallow chicks, rabbits dark & lurking.
On the idiot box a masterpiece. Charlton Heston
chooses the staff instead of the sword to free the Israelites
from Egypt. As he makes his way down Mount Sinai,
a man worshipping a golden calf says pry it from
my dead cold hands. She’s a tired child but is learning
the ways of men as she watches the pharaoh & Heston.
Mouth decimated by sugar, fingertips bloody with dye—