The Gospel of Mary
Mary Jo Bang
“Penitent Magdalene,” Domenico Tintoretto, c. 1598
I was living a life that was more
or less filled with misfiring synapses
inside a braincase. They said and said
and never stopped saying, “You are
that problem that can’t be undone,
a daughter that keeps becoming
what keeps her mother awake.” I was
in that moment mother to myself.
I was living a life filled with sky, gray
to cobalt blue, the robe that wraps
the day and keeps us together as long
as it lasts. I was living inside my head,
looking up, waiting to feel
an awakening but no angel came.
The blue tablet under my tongue
was melting. I was begging the sky
for rapture but all I could see
was a break in the clouds. The only in-
sight I had was what Horace said.
I read it in a book: we are owed
to death, we and whatever is ours.
