<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=527875" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Martha' Crucified.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Martha had this thing <br>about the Crucified. <br>The image, the cross, <br>the stretched out arms. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The one in the convent <br>school along by the chapel <br>always caught her eye. <br>Stood there staring. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Get a move on Martha, <br>the nun said. Don't gape so. <br>Or the image in the dining <br>room stuck up on the wall </div><div style="margin:10px 0">above the abbess's table. <br>Painted on she thought. <br>Not the same. Her mother <br>had the one her mother </div><div style="margin:10px 0">gave her on her deathbed. <br>Old wood and plaster. <br>The plaster peeling from <br>the hands of the Crucified. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Martha gaped at Him, <br>at His wounds, at the wound <br>in His side where the spear <br>went in. Forgive them for </div><div style="margin:10px 0">they know not. They did so, <br>the bastards, she muttered, <br>putting her fingers on the wound <br>in the side. She had an ebony </div><div style="margin:10px 0">rosary in her skirt pocket. Black <br>Christ on the small ebony cross. <br>She fingered in her pocket, said <br>the prayers, felt the stiff body </div><div style="margin:10px 0">on the cross. Sometimes she <br>took it out and kissed it; the ebony <br>body, the head, the arms. Once <br>she had a cross around her neck, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">silver, small, given by some old <br>codger. She felt it warm between <br>her small breasts. Lost it when she <br>took it off to wash and it slipped </div><div style="margin:10px 0">down the plughole in the convent bog. <br>She knew her mother had this wooden <br>crucifix on her chest of drawers. <br>A dark wood, a fleshy plastered Christ, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">nails through and hands and feet. <br>She kissed the hands when her mother <br>was out, her lips touching the smooth <br>plaster, the eyes closed, the feel of </div><div style="margin:10px 0">smoothness on flesh. Not the real <br>Christ of course. Least not yet. <br>She'd wait her turn. The real thing. <br>See what death and Heaven bring.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Terry+Collett">Terry Collett</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=527875" data-title="Martha' Crucified. de Terry Collett" data-description="Martha had this thing about the Crucified. The image, the cross, the stretched out arms. The one in the convent school along by the chapel always caught her eye. Stood there staring. Get a move on Martha, the nun said. Don't gape so. O..."></div> </div> </div>

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