Joseph Bathanti
We ease the statue out of the Chrysler trunk.
Stiff as a mob hit, she smiles,
her tattered robe della robia,
the nimbus studded with a star tiara.
In her arms, the smirking Christ-
child is lean and grim, in one hand
a ball with a cross planted in it,
the other held up like a boy scout's pledge.
I grab his mother in a headlock.
Philip takes the feet;
and we shuffle down Liberty Avenue:
Saturday night, the bars' glass-brick
windows lit with neon Iron City Light beer signs,
one Italian joint after another,
the spars of Saint Joseph's Cathedral shooting off
into the sky like wild onions.
We set her down for a minute at the foot
of Phil's studio and light cigarettes.
Four flights, fifteen steps each, straight up.
She stands there on the sidewalk,
holding the baby, gazing at Saint Joe's,
The Catholic Store, Mineo's Pizza,
the halogens twirling off across
the Bloomfield Bridge toward the Bishop's house.
The kid doesn't like it: the thrum
and noise, the lights. He's lived
all his life in a church.
We hoist them again and begin the climb,
pausing at each landing to rest, and crack at Mary:
You've got to lose some weight.
Too many cannolis.
When are you going to start exercising?
We offer her a smoke.
At the top, we wrestle her inside
and Phil turns on the light.
The baby has lost those two fingers;
only the thumb remains,
jutting out of the fist like a hitchhiker's.
He wants down. In the full light,
Mary is wan, tired, the smile thinning.
She has trouble holding her son.
Her eyes are wet; her lips quiver.
This is not unusual, my friend tells me,
gesturing about his workroom
where other virgin mothers,
nicked and beat-up, missing limbs and noses,
awaiting restoration,
hold tightly to their squirming children,
trying to hush them, their tears
like gravel hitting the linoleum.
Copyright (c) 2002 by Joseph Bathanti
Joseph Bathanti grew up in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh and came to
North Carolina in1976 as a VISTA volunteer to work in the state's prison system.
He is the author of four books of poetry, an award-winning playwright, and a
Pushcart Prize nominee for both short fiction and the essay. For eleven years he taught
English and was writer-in-residence at Mitchell Community College in Statesville, NC.
Currently he teaches creative writing at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC.