Hail

Like this Auschwitz barbed-wire rosary”
clipped with teeth and finger twisted,
black-blood-stained, rain-encrusted,
thorny, skin-pricking, motherly-misery-
pregnant, passed from hand to bone-ripped
ashen hand, brand of traitors
to the empire, fire in chokehold chambers
sparking visions of seraphic coal-tipped
tongs, rag-hidden prayer
ridden pearl
pruned from Israel’s bondage, now a
sign of our ingrafted bough, the
mangled laughingstock of the world”

Like this, dear son, is the whole of the blessed
and jubilant faith that we confess.