Miriam’s Song
by
Ronnie Hess
In 19th
century Austria-Hungary
The
census man asks an impertinent question:
not
just how many children but how many pregnancies.
As
if this is his business. She decides to tell him the truth.
He
writes the numbers in each small box, six and ten,
while
she moves in and out of the room’s shadows.
The
first one came soon after they were married,
when
she was in her teens, a dull ache in her back,
the
blood running down her thighs
the
morning she plucked and gutted the chicken.
The
village women told her she was young yet,
had
good hips, was made for bearing,
and
within a year there was Regina
their
little queen, the fair-haired girl.
May it please the Emperor, she had laughed.
Still,
there were the others, in the middle,
after
the two boys. It was her own fault –
she
had carried in the wood,
lifted
the laundry tub, visited her mother
after
the hailstorm, bumping up and down in the cart.
Each
time it happened, Benjamin had brought her
an
apple, cornflowers, pinecones,
asked
for her forgiveness.
Miriam,
beloved. the name God meant for her.
Mary,
Queen of Hungary, what bureaucracy had required.
She
had held the presents to her nose.
He
had touched her cheek.
Each
time, she had wrapped her legs around his.
Still,
she gave them names she never mentioned,
Dora,
Sonia, Erszebeth, Rifke, imagined their faces,
the
shape of their hands, their dispositions.
They
would be old enough now to bring in extra money,
haggle
with the butcher, fetch groceries up the dank staircase,
sit
at her feet, listen to her singing in the day’s released heat.
~
previously published in Whole Cloth
(Little Eagle Press)
