The People Before: Rosary

It seemed like you
were always negotiating
with God, small prayers
invented,
repeated, 
repented,
a way of counting,
(some kind of rosary),
a way of breathing out
the multiplicity of frustrations--
your husband,
your children,
the monotony of your love--
your fears
that could devour you.

On Sundays,
Father offered nothing,
but rhythm and incense
rising
up
into the dark cavern,
a numbing drone.
These lessons rehearsed,
these lessons repeated--
abstraction and allegory--
did not speak
to the worries,
to the insomnia
complicated
by a child's fever,
a husband's silence,
a minister's frown.

The two youngest are fighting
again
on the far side
of their father's stoic stare,
their sister's squirming.
The bones in their bony butts
cut flesh
from the inside; the boys are
cursing the hardened surface
of the Earth,
and of the mahogany pew.

This was the battle
that concerned you,
not armies mounting,
a final reckoning,
between heaven 
and hell.