Litany of Our Lady
Brenda Marie Osbey
LITANY OF OUR LADY
our lady of the sidewalksthe pavements and the crumbling brick
the mortar rock and oyster-shell roads
our lady of sorrows and sadnesses
of intolerable agonies tolerated daily
of drifters grifters scrappers and scrapers
our lady of dudes and dicks and pricks
of petty thieves and of whoremongers
of piss-swelled gutters
and dives
and the grimed over windows knotty-haired children peer through;
our lady
our lady of boys shot down in the dark
dying in open lots along lesser used roads leading out of town
of old men beneath interstates
sitting, standing, walking a block or so away and back;
our lady of lost and found and forgotten
cast-off ditched
of what was and never will be again
of aggrieved and bereft
accused indicted surrendered up to death
of old tar-colored women in plain or checkered housedresses
telling aloud their rosaries and rosaries
and rosaries of faith;
our lady of ladies
and of church-ladies-in-waiting
of young girls with hard uncertain breasts
and promises of school and school
and more school even than that; our lady of go-cups and fictionary tours
cigar bars absinthe bars
of coffee houses open all night and churches closed all day
for-admittance-please-ring-bell-and-wait
and wait;
our lady of antiques dealers dealing in saints
in crosses, weeping cemetery angels, prayer cards
in praline mammies, cigar shoppe indians
in dwarf nigger jockeys whose heads have been lopped off
and stand
one hand outstretched, one cocked at the hip
seeming not to be waiting but bargaining dealing
for the return of their heads
their heads their perfectly round perfectly lovely
little nappy nappy heads; our lady
our lady of tired buildings listing to one side
and brick-between-cypress posts that simply will stand
as houses themselves give way around falling-down stairs
leaving only a something
a memory of a structure
of spanish-tiled roofs and batten shutters
in a swamp
of a city
of ironworks and of plaster
o, lady lady
our lady of anything
at all